varied from town to town but also their relation to one another, in 1764 a major overhaul of the measurement system was prepared. By a royal decree of December 6, 1764 all units of measurement were to be converted to a new system, common to all of Poland and its dependencies. The system relied on previously used units, but introduced a common, unified system of relations between them. It had no official name and it was not until the 19th century when it started to be called the Old Polish system (miary staropolskie, or Old-Polish measures), in contrast to the new system introduced then. The basic unit of length - the ell or łokieć in Polish - was set to 0.5955 metres. For trade and everyday use it was further subdivided into the foot (stopa, ≈29.78 centimetres); sztych (≈19.86cm); quarter (ćwierć, ≈14.89cm); palm (dłoń, ≈7.44cm); and inch (cal, ≈2.48 centimetres), or gathered into the fathom (sążeń, 3 ells or 1.787 metres in length), such that:1 ell = 2 feet = 3 sztychs = 4 quarters = 8 palms = 24 inches ( = ⅓ of a fathom ).A different system of units, although complementary and interchangeable, was used in measuring lengths for agrarian purposes. The basic unit was a step (krok), equalling 3.75 of standard ell, or 2.2333 metres. Two steps made a rod (pręt, 4.4665 metres), 2 rods made a stick (laska), and five sticks were equal to a cable (sznur of 44.665 metres). Finally 3 cables made up a furlong (staje) of roughly 134 metres. In measuring the distance between cities, the basic unit was staje, although it was different from the staje mentioned before and had the length of roughly 893 metres. Eight staje made up a Polish mile of 7144 metres. The weights were based on the (funt of 0.4052 kg) composed of two grzywnas, each in turn comprising 16 lots (łut of 0.0127 kg). For heavier goods the basic units were a stone (kamień, 32 pounds or 12.976 kg) and Hundredweight (cetnar, five stones or 64.80 kg). There were two sets of units of volume: one for fluids and the other for dry goods. Both used the gallon (garniec) of 3.7689 litres as the basic unit. This was subdivided into 4 quarts () of 0.9422 L or 16 . For dry goods four gallons comprised a measure (), 2 measures comprised a quarter (), 4