The Athletes and Athletic Sports of Scotland

128 ATHLETIC SPORTS OF SCOTLAND. course, and the uprights for the high leap alwaysplaced in the same places,each ofthese and similar gatherings would establish records as valuable forcomparison from year to year, as though the groundwere level—provided always the measurements and time-taking were accurately madeach year. It may be thought that correct measurement is an easymatter, and so it is to those who understand how to make it, yet it is fully as easy making inaccurate measurements, which a good few also understand how to make. When at Inverness, in 1890, Duncan M 'Donald cleared the cross-barin the pole-vaulting with the uprights mark­ ing 11 ft.,none ofthe officials present knew how to measure the height correctly. In the firstplace, theydid not makesure that the poleplaced againsthe cross-bar was either perpendicular, or marked exactly at the height ofthe lowest part ofthe upper side of the cross-bar. In the second place, when they came to measure the pole used for taking the height, instead of putting an accurate tape line along it, they made anumber of separate measurements by shifting acarpenter's rule up the pole, a free and easy method of measurement by which a little may be added to or taken from the exact height every time the rule is shifted. In measuring the putting each put should be measured as it is made, fromthe point in the stance up to which the putter 's farthest advanced foot came to,to the first break, asin addition to every one not throwing from the same part of the stance, a subsequent throw often alights so nearly onthe same spot as a former one,that the first break of the formerone is obliterated; the samething happenswith the hammer, although not sooften. There is no loss oftime butgain, aseach throw canbe measured while thestone isbeing carriedback, and athe finish the judge has eachman's bestdistance already noted down.