Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/155

 and measures of those countries at an early date. China is said to have sent weaving experts in the fifth century, and since architects at the same epoch were sufficiently celebrated to find a place in history, it is probable that some fixed unit of length was recognised. The matter is removed from the region of conjecture in the seventh century, when two units are known to have been in use, one borrowed from China, the other from Korea. Both approximated very closely to the English foot, the Chinese being a fraction shorter than the foot and the Korean a fraction longer. Ultimately, however, the Korean measure ceased to be employed, and the Chinese went into sole use, though the change did not greatly simplify matters, for not only were there two kinds of Chinese foot, but also, in the absence of a fixed standard, the dimensions of each varied considerably. Measures of capacity and weight appear to have been equally unscientific. At first the unit for corn was a bundle consisting of a certain number of stalks, but ultimately the Chinese system was adopted, in which the unit of weight was a momme (the one-hundred-and-twentieth part of a pound avoirdupois); and the unit of capacity a go, of which ten made a sho, one hundred a to, and one thousand a koku (5.73 bushels). Several square vessels of varying capacity are preserved in ancient temples as representatives of the measuring boxes of different epochs.

In remote times sales, in the ordinary sense of