or Akka, or Acco, a town and seaport of Palestine, in the pachalic of Acre, and in ancient times a celebrated city, called Ptolemais, from Ptolemy, king of Egypt. It was named Acra from its fortifications; and by the knights of St John of Jerusalem it was called St John d'Acre. No town has experienced greater changes from political revolutions and the calamities of war. It has been successively possessed by Alexander's successors, who ruled in Egypt, by the Romans, the Saracens, the Christian crusaders, and finally by the Turks. According to some travellers, this city was the Accho of the Scriptures, one of the strongholds of which the Israelites could not dispossess the Canaanites; and in confirmation of this supposition, Mr Buckingham, who visited Acre in 1816, found in the ditches which they were then digging around the wall, fragments of houses which bore marks of the highest antiquity; consisting of that highly sun-burnt brick, with a mixture of cement and sand, which was only used in buildings constructed in the remotest ages. It is only, however, during its possession by Ptolemy, and when it was called Ptolemais, that history gives any certain account of it. It was known during those ancient times to be a great city; and although no perfect monument of its grandeur now remains, yet throughout the modern town are seen fine marble and granite pillars, used at the thresholds of door-ways, or in other parts of ordinary buildings, or lying neglected on the ground. When the empire of the Romans began to extend over Asia, Ptolemais came into their possession; and it yielded in like manner to the growing power of the Saracens. They were expelled from it in 1110 by the crusaders, who retained it until 1187, when it was recovered by Saladin, sultan of Egypt. In 1191 it was retaken by Richard I. of England and Philip of France, who purchased this conquest by the sacrifice of 100,000 troops. They gave the town to the knights of St John of Jerusalem, and it afterwards became the principal scene of contest between the crusaders and the Saracens. It was at this time a large and extensive city, on the direct route to Jerusalem, and a place of great resort. It was accordingly populous and wealthy, and contained numerous churches, convents, and hospitals, of which no traces now remain. The city was under a peculiar system of government, being ruled by all the Christian powers both of Europe and Asia, 19 of whom exercised independent authority within its bounds. It was taken by the Saracens after a bloody siege in 1291, during which it suffered severely, and afterwards fell into decay. Under their dominion it remained till 1517, when it fell into the hands of the Turkish sultan, Selim I. So late as the year 1696, Maundrell, who visited it, states that it had never recovered from its last overthrow; and that, with the exception of the residences of the French factors, a mosque, and a few poor cottages, it presented a vast and spacious scene of ruin. After this period Acre again became a considerable city, and was much strengthened and improved. It is memorable in modern history for the gallantry with which it was defended in 1799 by the Turks, animated by the example and advice of Sir Sydney Smith, against Bonaparte, who, after spending sixty-one days before it, was obliged to retreat. It was afterwards strongly fortified by Jezzar Pacha, and continued to enjoy an increasing degree of prosperity till 1832. Though fettered by imposts and monopolies, it carried on a considerable foreign trade, and had resident consuls from most of the great states of Europe. During its siege by Ibrahim Pacha in the winter of 1831–32, which lasted five months and twenty-one days, its public and private buildings were mostly destroyed. The only one that escaped uninjured was the fountain of Djezzar. Its fortifications were subsequently repaired and improved; but on the 3d November 1840, the town was reduced to ruins by a three hours' bombardment from the British fleet, acting as the allies of the sultan. The town is situate at the extremity of a plain on the edge of the sea-shore, and at the point of a bay formed by the promontory of Mount Carmel on the south-west, and the termination of the plain itself on the north-east. This bay faces the north-west, and from Cape Carmel to the city it may be about ten miles across. The bay affords no shelter in bad weather, being open to the north-west winds, which blow violently on the coast; and the port of Acre is a small hollow basin behind a ruined mole, scarcely capable of containing a dozen boats. Vessels coming to this coast, therefore, either to load or discharge their cargoes, generally frequent the road of Caipha, a place of anchorage on the south side of the bay, near which the river Kishon flows into the sea. Acre is now the chief mart for the cotton of Syria, and the principal commercial nations of Europe have consuls here. It is 80 miles N.N.W. of Jerusalem, and 27 S. of Tyre. Long. 36. 6. E. Lat. 32. 56. N.

**Acre**, a measure of superficies, and the principal denomination of land-measure in use throughout the whole of Great Britain. The word (formed from the Saxon *acher*, or the German *aker*, a field) did not originally signify a determinate quantity of land, but any open ground, especially a wide campaign; and in this antique sense it seems to be preserved in the names of places, as Castle-acre, West-acre, &c. The English standard acre, now the imperial acre of Britain, is formed by raising a square of which the basis is the chain of 66 feet, or 22 yards, or 1-80th of a mile; and ten of these squares form the acre, which thus contains 4840 square yards. This is divided into *roods*, of which there are four in the acre; and into *poles* or *perches*, of which there are 40 in each rood, or 160 in the acre. The rood will thus measure 1210 square yards, and the pole 30\(\frac{1}{2}\) square yards, according to the following table, which contains also other denominations useful to be compared with the acre.

| Inches | Links | |--------|-------| | 69726 | 1 | | 144 | 2-295 | | 1296 | 20-661| | 39204 | 625 | | 627264 | 10000 | | 1568160| 25000 | | 6272640| 100000|

The above is the standard acre of England; but various customary acres are in use throughout the different counties, deviating considerably from this standard both in excess and defect, though all of them are now illegal since the act 5 George IV., which establishes the same standard throughout the whole kingdom. In Bedfordshire, it is sometimes only two roods; Cheshire, formerly, and still in some places, 10,240 square yards; Cornwall, sometimes 5760 yards; Dorsetshire, generally 134 perches; Hampshire, from 107 to 120 perches, but sometimes 180; Herefordshire, two-thirds of a statute acre. The acre for hops contains 1000 plants, and is only equal to half a statute acre; for wood, again, it is 256 perches. Leicestershire, 2308\(\frac{3}{4}\) square yards; Lincolnshire, five roods, particularly for copyhold land; Staffordshire, nearly 24\(\frac{1}{2}\) acres; Sussex, 107, 110, 120, 130, or 212 perches; the short acre 100 or 120 perches, the forest acre 180 perches. Westmorland, 6760 square yards, or 160 perches of 6\(\frac{1}{2}\) yards square; in some parts the Irish acre is used: Worcester, the hop acre, of 1000 stocks, 90 perches, sometimes 132 or 141 perches.

In North Wales, the Erw or true acre is 4320 square yards, the Stang or customary acre 3240 square yards, as in Anglesea and Caernarvonshire, making 5\(\frac{1}{3}\) Llathen, = 160 perches of 4\(\frac{1}{2}\) yards square, called *patlad*: 8 acres make an ox-*land*, and 8 of these a plough-*land*, in Pembrokeshire. In South Wales the Erw varies greatly with the perch; sometimes this is nine feet square, 160 perches making one stangel, and four stangelles one erw of 3760 yards; sometimes 10\(\frac{1}{2}\) feet square, making a quart or quarter of a llath, 40 of which make a stangel, and four stangelans an erw, which is thus 7840 yards, equal to the Irish acre; sometimes 11 feet, called bar or eytwys law, making the erw 9384 yards, as in Glamorganshire, one-fifth more = 11,261 yards; sometimes 11\(\frac{1}{2}\) feet, called a llath, 48 making a quarter cyvar, and four cyvars an erw of 11,776 yards; lastly, 12 feet, giving an erw of 10,240 yards, equal to the Staffordshire acre.

Nothing can show more clearly than the existence of such numerous and useless diversities, the necessity of the late act for establishing a uniform standard throughout Great Britain, and which only requires to be enforced with strictness to abolish for ever every other measure. In Scotland the acre is much more uniform, scarcely deviating in any part more than one per cent. from the standard. It is raised from the chain of 24 ells; and by the verdict of the jury assembled at Edinburgh on the 4th February 1826, to determine the proportion between the existing measures and the imperial, the ell was found, according to an accurate measurement made by Mr Jardine, civil engineer, 37-0598 inches, making the chain 74-1196 feet, and the acre 6104 square yards and 12789, &c decimals of a yard. It is considerably larger, therefore, than the imperial acre; and as the act of uniformity establishes this latter in its stead, it makes an important change throughout Scotland, and it becomes necessary to know exactly the proportions between them. The imperial, we have seen, contains 4840 square yards, while the Scottish contains 6104-12789, &c. They are to each other, therefore, as 1 is to 1-26118345; so that 1000 acres Scottish are equal to 1261-18345 imperial; and in every case, to convert Scottish into imperial, multiply by the fraction 1-26118345: such minuteness, however, is seldom required in practice. A ready and very accurate approximation will be obtained by reckoning one acre Scottish equal to five quarters imperial, and \(\frac{1}{4}\) th part more. This will give the value of the acre almost to one-fourth of a square yard in defect. Hence we have this general rule: To convert Scottish acres into imperial, add one-fourth; and if that is not sufficiently minute, add \(\frac{1}{4}\) th more. Take, for example, 1000 acres, add one-fourth or 250, and we have 1250; add still \(\frac{1}{4}\) th, or 11, and we have 1261. This rule is obtained by expressing the above fraction in a series of which we take only the first three terms. It is one acre Scottish \(= 1 + \frac{1}{4} + \frac{1}{16} + \frac{1}{64} + \ldots\) acres imperial. By a similar rule, it is easy to convert the Scottish money rates or prices of land into imperial: we have only to multiply the Scottish prices by the fraction 0-792906, the reciprocal of the other; or deduct one-fifth from the price, and for greater accuracy \(\frac{1}{4}\) th more; or what is still simpler, deduct 20\(\frac{1}{4}\) per cent. or 4s. 1\(\frac{1}{2}\)d. in the pound from the Scottish prices. An estate of 1000 acres, for example, is to be let at 30s. per acre: What is the rent per imperial acre? Deduct 4s. 1\(\frac{1}{2}\)d. and the half of it for the additional 10s., and we have 6s. 2\(\frac{1}{2}\)d. less, or on the whole 23s. 9\(\frac{1}{2}\)d. These rules will apply in every practical case; and for very particular and extremely accurate purposes, recourse must be had to the original fraction 0-792906 and 1-26118345.

Such are the relations of the Scottish standard acre to the imperial; but until of late years, it was the practice of land-surveyors to measure with a chain of 74 feet and 4-10ths of a foot in length, the length of the ell having been erroneously estimated at 37 inches and 2-10ths of an inch. This practice increased the acre from 6104-13448 to 6150-4 square yards; it made the ratio of this acre to the imperial as 1 to 1-27074, &c.; or we may reckon one acre equal to five quarters imperial, and 3-1/8th more.

When this error in the length of the chain came to be discovered, surveyors took to the chain of exactly 74 feet; this length being recommended by the round number, and the nearer approach to the standard. By it the acre contains only 6084-4444, &c. yards; it is to the imperial acre as 1 to 1-23711652, &c., or we make one of these acres equal to five quarters imperial, and 3-1/8th more.

In Ireland the perch, of which the acre contains as usual 160, is a square of seven yards. The acre, therefore, contains 7840 square yards. See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES; Parliamentary Reports of the Commissioners of Weights and Measures; Act 5 Geo. IV.; and Buchanan's Tables of Weights and Measures, where the conversions are all given by inspection.

The following table contains the principal foreign land measures, with their equivalents in Imperial measurement.

| France, Are | Acres | Roads | Perches | |-------------|-------|-------|--------| | | | | | | Hectare | 0 | 0 | 39538 | | Arpent, great | 2 | 1 | 3538 | | Arpent, small | 1 | 1 | 192 | | Amsterdam, Morgen, large | 0 | 3 | 1518 | | Berlin, Morgen, large | 1 | 1 | 2438 | | Morgen, small | 0 | 2 | 2095 | | Dantzig, Morgen | 1 | 1 | 1999 | | Hamburg, Morgen | 2 | 1 | 2164 | | Scheffel of corn land | 1 | 0 | 6 | | Nuremberg, Morgen, corn land | 1 | 0 | 2990 | | Morgen, meadow | 0 | 2 | 409 | | Hanover, Morgen | 0 | 2 | 2247 | | Prussia, Morgen | 0 | 2 | 2992 | | Rhineland, Morgen | 2 | 0 | 1669 | | Zurich, Acre, common | 0 | 3 | 811 | | Acre, wood | 0 | 3 | 2235 | | Acre, meadow | 0 | 2 | 3388 | | Saxony, Acre | 1 | 1 | 1786 | | Spain, Panagada, for corn land | 1 | 0 | 2181 | | Arranzada, for vineyards | 3 | 0 | 3282 | | Russia, Demidoff | 2 | 2 | 3196 | | Sweden, Tuneland | 1 | 0 | 3504 | | Switzerland, Paxx | 1 | 2 | 1999 | | Tuscany, Quadrato | 0 | 3 | 1637 | | Vienna, Joch | 1 | 1 | 2773 | | Naples, Moggia | 0 | 3 | 1246 | | Rome, Pezza | 0 | 2 | 2440 | | Portugal, Geira | 1 | 1 | 3041 |

In the United States of America the imperial acre is used. The Roman jugerum was somewhat larger than half an imperial acre containing 2 roads, 19 perches, 189 square feet. Two jugera formed a heredias, so called from its being the quantity of land originally assigned to each Roman citizen; a hundred heredias formed a centuria, and four centurias a salus. The Greek plethron consisted of 4 arurae, and was equal to 37 perches, 153 square feet.