Pleasure at the tip

[Alan McBride <>]

Just in case no one else is as old as Bill,  :-)

you may be interested in the explanation below:

chain (ch)
a unit of distance formerly used by surveyors. The traditional British surveyor's chain, also called Gunter's chain because it was introduced by the English mathematician Edmund Gunter (1581-1626) in 1620, is 4 rods long: that's equal to exactly 1/80 mile, 1/10 furlong, 22 yards, or 66 feet (20.1168 meters). The traditional length of a cricket pitch is 1 chain. Gunter's chain has the useful property that an acre is exactly 10 square chains. The chain was divided into 100 links. American surveyors sometimes used a longer chain of 100 feet, known as the engineer's chain or Ramsden's chain. (However, Gunter's chain is also used in the U.S.; in fact, it is an important unit in the Public Lands Survey System.) In Texas, the vara chain of 2 varas (55.556 ft) was used in surveying Spanish land grants. In the metric world, surveyors often use a chain of 20 meters (65.617 ft).

For anyone wishing to explore further units of measurement:

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/

Cheers

Alan

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Alan McBride
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On 22/03/06 16:21, "WILLIAM WATSON" <> wrote:

> A Black Falcon, thrilling in its beauty and menace, was at the Albury "Landfill" area (ie tip) this afternoon. I saw it flying about as I drove up. Having stopped and got out, about a chain from the entry collection point, I thought that I owed the attendant an explanation and a share of the pleasure.
>  
>  "See that. It's a Black Falcon."   I could tell that he appreciated the information, as he kept grinning. I kept grinning too, as Falco started to swoop on a flock of starlings, sending them, as a unit, straight into one of the few trees in that desolation.
>  
> Albury tip is generally a good place for Black Kites. Musing on these two hawks I recall an occasion in Werribee SF with the great Fred Smith, when a Black Falcon seized, and shook, a Black Kite above our heads. Feathers rained down on us.
>  
> Bill Watson