From what I have just now mentioned, I hope it is sufficiently plain to the reader, that the length and division of the column in the Mikeas, by which the quantity of water, and consequently the increase of the soil, was to be determined, was utterly unknown to those travellers who had undertaken this mode of determining it.
I shall now inquire, whether they were better instructed in the length of that measure, which, after the Saracen conquest, was introduced into the Nilometer, of Geeza, where it has remained unaltered since the year 245? Dr Shaw introduces the consideration of this subject by an enumeration of many different peeks, seven of which he quotes from Arabian authors, as being then in use. First, the Homaræus 12⁄9 digit of the common cubit. 2. The Hasamean, or greater peek, of 24 digits. 3. The Belalæan, less than the Hasamean. 4. The black cubit less than the Belalean 2⅔ digits. 5. The Jossippæan ⅔ of a digit less than the black cubit. 6. The Chord, or Asaba, 1⅔ digit less than the black peek. 7. The Maharanius, 2⅔ digits less than the black cubit[1]. Now, I will appeal to any one to what all this information amounts, when I am not told the length of the common peek to which he refers the rest, as being 1½ digit, or 2 digits more or less. He himself thinks that the measuring peek is the Stambouline peek, but then, for computation's sake, he takes a peek of his own invention, being a medium of 4 or 5 guesses, and fixes it at 25 inches, for which he has no authority but his own imagination.
- ↑ Shaw, p. 380. 381
