-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fwd: 10 degrees, or 156 1/4 leagues]
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 12:51:16 +1100
From: [log in to unmask]
To: Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>

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The best site I have found for informaiton on old and new measurement
units is:
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/
by Russ Rowlett.
His entry for league states:
     a traditional unit of distance. Derived from an ancient Celtic unit
and adopted by the Romans as the leuga, the league became a common unit
of measurement throughout western Europe. It was intended to represent,
roughly, the distance a person could walk in an hour. The Celtic unit
seems to have been rather short (about 1.5 Roman miles, which is roughly
1.4 statute miles or 2275 meters), but the unit grew longer over time.
In many cases it was equal to 3 miles, using whatever version of the
mile was current. At sea, the league was most often equal to 3 nautical
miles, which is 1/20 degree [2], 3.45 statute miles, or exactly 5556
meters. In the U.S. and Britain, standard practice is to define the
league to be 3 statute miles (about 4828.03 meters) on land or 3
nautical miles at sea. However, many occurrances of the "league" in
English-language works are actually references to the Spanish league
(the legua), the Portuguese league (legoa) or the French league (lieue).
For t!
 hese units, see below on this page.

Check the website for the above mentioned entries for Lieue, legoa,
legua etc.

Brendan Whyte
Geography Dept
University of Melbourne
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