From JOHN EDWARDS
I know that New Scientist crusades for metric units (‘The longbow’s deadly
secrets’, 5 June, and Letters, 3 July), but have you no sense of history at
all ? Was not a longbow arrow a cloth-yard long, that is 37 inches? How can
you measure so noble an artefact in ‘millimetres’ – the very word sounds
thin, weak and cringing beside the inch, which took its being from the width
of a craftsman’s thumb pressed flat upon the workbench. That’s the unit for
longbows.
John Edwards
Goostrey, Cheshire
