11 els to the rod/pole/perch, 4 rods to the chain, 10 chains to the furlong, 8 furlongs to the mile. An el is one and a half feet.

Once one gets to talking hogsheads and tuns, there are a multitude of correct measurements. I was using one which equalled 72 imperial gallons, but they can range as low as 46 gallons (probably U.S. gallons, which are based on one of the old wine gallons) for Claret or Madeira (wines). Generally speaking, 4 hogsheads makes one tun. A tun of water weighs roughly one ton, incidentally. As a tun is a volumetric measurement, and the ton is a gravimetric measurement, if anyone asks the old trick question, "which weighs more, a ton/tun of bricks or a ton/tun of feathers?" you can utterly confuse them by asking them if they mean a volumetric or a gravimetric ton/tun. (They are pronounced identically.)

The wild confusion over the appropriate amount of volume in a hogshead or a tun doubtless derives from the fact that these were originally classes of barrels, each class of which had a fair amount of variation.







• ( http link ) This Wikipedia article includes that Simpsons' quote.
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