Mile mile to diverge. Owing to the importance of the surveyor's rod in deeds and surveying undertaken under Henry VIII, decreasing the length of the rod by would have amounted to a significant tax increase. Parliament instead opted to maintain the mile of 8 furlongs (which were derived from the rod) and to increase the number of feet per mile from the old Roman value. The applicable passage of the statute reads: "A Mile shall contain eight Furlongs, every Furlong forty Poles, and every Pole shall contain sixteen Foot and half." The statute mile therefore contained 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards.
How Many Miles to Babylon? (novel) How Many Miles to Babylon? (novel) How Many Miles to Babylon? is a novel by Irish writer Jennifer Johnston, first published in 1974. The novel explores the relationship of two men, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Alexander Moore, and a lower class son of a labourer on his lands, Jerry, as they experience the First World War. The story is the complex tale of a friendship between two boys in Ireland prior to and during World War I. Alec, the son of Anglo-Irish parents grows up lonely and friendless on his parents' estate in Wicklow during the early years of the 20th