I have given some space to these Channel Island measures, so interesting as a survival of Norman measures and as a link between the measures of old France and of England. The peculiar monetary system of Guernsey will be given in Chapter XIII.
Here we find two systems, those of Holland and of England, used according to public convenience, and combined as far as possible. The linear standard is Rhineland; the foot = 12·356 inches. The rod is 12 Rhineland feet; the English mile is reckoned as 426 rods.
The land-unit is the Morgen = 2·12 acres, of 600 square rods.
Weights are now Imperial; with a cental-cwt., and a ton of 20 centals or 2000 lb.
For corn measures, Imperial and Dutch measures are combined in the Mud of 3 bushels or 4 Schepels.
For fluid measure the unit is the Anker = 7·95 gallons, a lower standard than the Amsterdam anker = 8·5 gallons, probably through the influence of English measure. The Legger (leaguer) is 126·6 gallons, in 4 Aam, 16 Anker and 80 Velts. This gives the Velt somewhat a lower standard than in Java, where the legger = 127·34 gallons, and the velt = 1·59 gallons.
Of the measures and weights of India, a country containing one-fifth of the population of the world, divided into many nationalities, only a slight sketch can be given, and that chiefly of the measures used in British India as distinguished from the tributary states. The measures of the Aryan population of Hindustan, and those of the Dravidian peoples of peninsular India, are different; moreover the influence of the Moslem conquerors, Mogul and Pathan, of the Portuguese in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the English in more modern times, has modified these measures.
As in other Eastern countries the linear unit is usually a cubit, the _hástha_ or _háth_, divided into 24 digits. Traces of the Egyptian increased cubit are to be found. In a classical work on architecture, the Mánasára, the Hástha, of 24 digits for timber, is increased to 25 for temples, to 26 for houses, to 27 for municipal buildings and land. The addition of 3 digits to the 24 of the Egyptian common cubit would give 27 digits, approximately equal to the 28 smaller digits of the royal cubit.
In Southern India the cubit is sometimes the _mūyangál_ (_mūyam_, cubit; _kál_, leg), the length from the knee to the ankle.