GYMNASTICS

I GUNTERS CHAIN, so called from its reputed inventor, is the chain commonly used for measuring land. It i^ 66 feet or 4 poles in length, and is divided into 100 links, each of which is joined to the adjacent one by three rings; and the length of each link, including the connecting rings, is 792 inch(>s. The advantage of this measure consists in the facility which it affords to numerical calculation. The English acre contains 4840 square yards; and Gunter's chain being 22 yards in length, the square of which is 484, it follows that a s^ware chain is exactly the tenth part of an acre. A square chain again contains 10,000 square links, so tnat 100,000 square links are equal to an acre; consequently, the contents of a field being cast up in square links, it is only nece ary to divide by 100,000, or to cut oft' the last five figures, to obtain the contents expre ed in acres. [s. 549]