HOW TO GUESSING MEASUREMENT

Self Measures

Every pioneer should know his exact personal measurement in the following details, of which I give the average man’s measure:

Nail Joint of forefinger, or breadth of thumb                                1 inch

Span of thumb and forefinger                                                        8 inches

Span of thumb and little finger                                                      9 inches

Wrist to elbow (this also gives you the length of your foot)         10 inches 

Elbow to tip of forefinger (called ‘cubit’)                                     17 inches

Middle of kneecap to ground 18 inches

Extended arms, from finger-tip to finger-tip, is called a “fathom” and nearly equals your height.

Pulse beats about 75 times a minute. Each beat is a little quicker than a second.

Step:  A step is about 2 ½  feet; about 120 steps equal 100 yards. Fast walking steps are shorter than slow ones.

- Fast walking you walk a mile in 16 minutes, or nearly four miles an hour.

Every Scout should be able to judge distance from an inch up to a mile and more. If you remember your self measures accurately, they are a great help to you in measuring things. Also it is useful to cut notches in your staff, showing such measurements as one inch six inches, one foot and one yard. These you can measure off with a tape measure before you use your staff. 

 Judging the distance of a journey is generally done by seeing how long have been travelling, and at what rate. Suppose you walk at the rate of four miles an hour. If you have  been walking for and hour and a half you know that you have done about six miles.

Distance can also be judged by sound. If you see a gun fired in the distance, and you count the number of seconds between the flash and the sound of the explosion reaching, you will be able to tell how far off you are from the gun. Sound travels at the rate of 365 yards in a second --- as many yards as there are days in the year.

 For distances over these think out for yourself which point is half-way to the object. Estimate how far this may be from you, and then double it to obtain the distance. Another way is to estimate the farthest distance that the object can be way and the very nearest it could be, and strike a mean between the two. Object appear nearer then the really are when the light is bright and shining on the object; when looking across water or snow; when looking uphill or down. Objects appear farther of f when in the shade; when across a valley; when the background is of the same color; when the observer is lying down or kneeling; when there is a heat have over the ground.

Test the following from your own observations:-

 At 50 yards mouth and eyes of a person can be clearly seen.

 At 100 yards, eyes appear as dots.

 At 200 yards, buttons and details of uniform can still be seen.

 At 300 yards, face can be seen. 

At 400 yards, the movement of the legs can be seen. 

At 500 yards the colour of the uniform can be seen.