Page:Arrian's Voyage Round the Euxine Sea Translated.djvu/174

Rh account given by Pliny to be very erroneous; and adds, that the plant uppoed to be the is three feet high ; which agrees with the decription given by Diofcorides, uppoing the cubit to be a foot and a half, but not with Pliny's account.

Again, Mr. Barré ays, that the Greeks employed two different meaures, or palms, in etimating the foot and the cubit; the maller called, and the larger. The former of thee he defines to be the breadth of the four fingers, laid cloe to one another; and the latter to be the breadth of the four fingers, with the addition of that of the thumb, in what he calls its natural Rate; which he explains to be when it appears a little eparated from the fingers, as it always is when the hand is opened.

His definition of the former of thee meaures is jut, but not o of the latter. The is the pan, not meaured from the fingers lying cloe together, but from the thumb to the little finger, when both are extended. Indeed this is what the word itelf denotes, being derived from, which both Eutathius and the Scholiat on Aritophanes interpret to be of the ame meaning with. Mr.