LAPIS

(Lat.) In Roman Antiquity, literally a stone; but used among the Romans to signify a mile, at the end of which lapides or stones were erected with a mark thereon to show the distance from Rome. Hence the phrases "tertius lapis," " centesimus lapis," ., for 3, 100, . miles; and sometimes even the ordinal number was used, with lapidem understood, as " ad duo decimum,"— twelve miles distant. The Roman practice of indicating the distance of one place from another by the erection of stones has been borrowed by almost all the nations of modern Europe. [s. 651]