_The Baltic Skippund._ This ship-pound was 20 lispund, of either 20 light or 16 heavy pounds:
Denmark & Norway—20 lispund of 16 skaalpund = 352 lb. Sweden—20 lispund of 20 skaalpund = 375 lb. Russia—the berkowitz, 10 pūd of 40 fūnt = 361 lb.
The Pounds of Poland, of Russia, of Austro-Hungary and Bavaria (also a mint-pound in Sweden), appear to have developed from the Arabic pounds on a dirhem-basis.
1. The Polish pound, 16 × 8 dirhems of 48·9 grains, = 6258 grs. It is divided into 16 ounces; the oz. = 391 grs. (Cf. the lb. of Sardinia and of Languedoc; the oz. = 392 grs.)
2. The Russian pound or fūnt, of 12 ounces. The ounce (lana) = 526·6 grains is almost exactly 10 greater dirhems of 52·6 grains.
This ounce is exactly that of the rottolo attári or Assyrian rotl of 8426 grains (the Greek-Asiatic miná) still extant in Bássora (Chaldæa) and in Algeria. The relationship is evident, since the Roman As was 1/100 of the Greek-Asiatic talent, and the greater dirhem was 1/9 of the As-ounce = 420·75 grains.
3. The Austro-Hungarian pound, also used in Bavaria, is 16 × 8 dirhems of 50·6 grains = 6482·3 grs.
This pound, = 6503 grains, was divided into 2 mint-marcs, divided again into 8 ounces of 406·3 grains. Of the same type is the commercial skaalpund = 6536 grs.; its oz. = 408·5 grs., a weight exactly the same as that of the ounce of Genoa, which belongs to the dirhem-system, being 8 dirhems of 51 grains.
The Swedish medicinal weight is Nuremburg. There are two miner’s pounds showing the extremes of Troy weight; the ounces being 483 and 471 grains.
In Egypt the dirhem-system gives rise to two series of weights: that of the Oka and that of the Rottolo. In the latter word the Arabic ‘rotl’ is Italianised, the Arabic weights having come under Roman influence; an influence of long standing, since Al-Mamūn divided the Cantar after the Roman plan into 125 lesser rotl as well as into 100 greater rotl, when the Arabic gold Mithkal, 1/72 of the Egypto-Roman libra, took the place of the exagium solidi or aureus, 1/72 of the Roman mint-As.
The Mithkal, or Miskal, = 72·74 grains, was divided into 24 Egyptian qirát = 3·03 grains, as the Aureus had been divided into 24 Roman Siliquæ = 2·92 grains, and 16 of the 24 qirát was the standard of the silver dirhem = 48·5 grains, _the lesser dirhem_.