Gabb, Thomas: Finis pyramidis or Disquisitions concerning the antiquity and scientific end of the great pyramid of Giza, or ancient Memphis, in Egypt, and of the first standard of linear measure (Retford, 1806)

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minds, and probably from a tradition of a custom,
amongst their ancestors, of retaining specimens of an
hundredth part of large quantities, as some criterion
whereby to know their own, from the lands adjoining; it
might from a familiarity with these centesms, easily
occur to them, that this deposite of an oblong Chest, was
the centesimal part of the length on the outside. But,
to wave these conjectures, not, I conceive, wholly
improbable, certain we are, that the Saites, or Saitse,
who emigrated from Egypt to settle at Cecropia, brought
with them specimens of linear measure perfectly com-
mensurate with the length of the Chest in question, and
by it determined the precise front line of their dedication
to Minerva, called by them, or by their descendants-,
prior to the destruction of it by Xerxes, parthenon and
hecatompedon. Whence it is clearly proved, by that
ancient front, exactly ten times the length of the Chest,
that either the first founders-of the temple divided the
specimen copy of the Chest into ten parts for the mea-
sure of ten feet; or their posterity divided the said front
line into an 100 parts, for the same purpose : in either
case, the Chest is proved to have been the original
standard, from which the greater part of the ancient
postdeluvian world, derived their foot measure; as shewn
in this treatise above Chap. 3rd, and elsewhere passim.
To return, then,

The Greek plethron can mean only a vague extent
of land, when explained according to the import of the
term : it is made up of the double aroura, as acre with
us is constituted by a fixed number of perches, which
perch, in a length determined by law, is in general use ;
yet in some places a different size of perch still prevails ;
of course the acre in such places is of various extent.

And