registered the dimensions in simple notches; but what of this? I knew
not what distance these notches might be from the end, or from each
other--how many feet or inches! I might make a rude guess, but that
would be of no service to me; so that after all my pains I had as yet no
_data_ to go upon, nor could I have any until I had first _measured my
measuring-rods themselves_!

Apparently, here was a difficulty not to be got over. Considering that
I had no standard of measurement within reach--neither yard-stick, nor
foot rule, nor graduated scale of any kind--you will naturally conclude
that I must have abandoned the problem. A computation founded on the
mere length of the stick would have been absurd, and could have given me
no information whatever upon the point about which I wanted to be
informed. To find the cubic and liquid contents of the cask, I must
first have its length, with its largest and shortest diameters,
expressed in _standard_ terms--that is, either in feet or inches, or
some other divisions of a scale.

And how, I ask, was this to be ascertained, when I possessed no standard
of measurement about my person? None whatever. I could not make one;
for in order to do so, I should have required another for a guide. Of
course, I could not _guess_ the length either of feet or inches.

How, then, was I to proceed?

Apparently, the difficulty was not to be got over. The thing seemed
impracticable.

To you it may seem so, but it did not to me. I had thought of this
before. I should not have proceeded as far as I had done--taking so
much pains and trouble with the splitting and splicing of my sticks, and
making my measurements so exact--had I not foreseen this difficulty, and
thought of a way to surmount it. All this had been prospectively
arranged. I knew before-hand that I _could measure_ my sticks, and tell
their linear dimensions to the exactness of an inch.

"How?"

Thus, then--

When I said just a little ago that I had no standard about my person, I
spoke the truth only literally. Although not exactly _about_ my person,
I had one in my person--I was myself that standard! You will now
remember my having submitted myself to a measurement, which showed me to
be four feet in length. Of what value that knowledge now proved to me!

Knowing, then, my own height to be very nearly four feet, I could notch
off that measure upon one of the sticks, which would give me a
measuring-rule of four fe