The pound of Provence was 16 ounces, each 8 dirhems of 47·1 grains.
The Troy pounds had ounces of 10 dirhems varying between 47·2 grains for French Troy and 48·3 for northern Troy.
The Spanish pound = 7101 grains, its ounce = 443·8 grains, was originally at the Moorish standard of 6 mithkals to the ounce, that is the Egypto-Roman ounce, the old averdepois ounce. But 6 mithkals being equal to 9 lesser dirhems, this dirhem-basis appears to have been taken. Then, for lesser dirhems of 48·5 grains, 9 heavier dirhems of 49·3 grains, nearly the Morocco and Gascony standard, were substituted.
The Nuremburg or Venetian pound. Its ounce, = 460 grains, was 12 drachms of 57·6 grains, 1/100 of the lesser rotl.
The Cologne pound of 7200 grains, its ounce = 451 grains, or at Tower standard 450 grains, was the greater rotl. Or its ounce was 9 dirhems of that rotl, dirhems of 50·03 grains.
It is thus seen that every European pound is composed of ounces on a dirhem-basis, of 8, 9, 10 or 12 dirhems; or, as in the case of the averdepois ounce, coinciding with the ounce of 6 mithkals or 9 dirhems. The ounce was—
8 dirhems in the light Mediterranean pounds. 9 dirhems in the medium pounds of Spain and Cologne. 10 dirhems in the Troy pounds. 10 greater dirhems in the Russian pound. 12 drachmæ in the Venetian pound.
1. Coin-weights:— Grains. Aureus, 1/6 of As-ounce 70·1 3/4 „ 1/8 „ „ greater dirhem 52·6 Mithkal, 1/6 of Egypto-Roman ounce 72·74 3/4 „ 1/9 „ „ „ lesser dirhem 48·5
2. Rotl-weights:— 1/100 lesser rotl drachma 57·63 1/144 greater rotl medium dirhem 50·03
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(_a_) based on a certain cubed linear measure;
(_b_) made to hold a certain weight of water or of corn.
A measure of capacity for wine or other fluids may be increased in water-wheat, or pound-pint, ratio to make a corn-measure.
In England they were originally based on the measure of 1000 ounces of water, which became a cubic foot. Many foreign measures are either a cubic foot, sometimes increased in water-wheat ratio, or a cubed cubit.
In Germany, amid a great diversity of measures, a chaos to anyone who has not the key to the principle of unity underlying variety, apparently aberrant measures often show by their names that, while their value has changed, they were originally of a standard that can be traced. And it will generally be found that they are related to a cubic foot, perhaps increased in water-wheat ratio. Sometimes there is one measure for wine and corn, and sometimes the increased corn-measure may have come to be used for fluids while the corn-measure actually in use has been imported.