John and Sandy, in discussing the use of Fathoms in measurement, raise the
question,
Why did the Navy measure horizontal distances in Chains?
It was not only the Navy which did this, but all land surveyors. When I
learnt topographical surveying as part of the Mining Engineering course at
the Royal School of Mines (circa 1950) we used chains.
A chain measured 22 yards, and contained 100 links ( one link = 0.6667 feet
), and such chains were used when you did a chain and offset ( = "chaining"
) survey.
The commonest current measure of one chain is the length of a cricket
pitch.
I think it all derives from the old Saxon system of strip farming, and is a
convenient fraction of a furlong and a mile -- one furlong being as long as
one would wish to plough a furrow
Tony Brewis
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