Volume 27, Number 3 · March 6, 1980
How High the Hand?
By Warren Button
In response to Alexander's Mules
(December 20, 1979)
To the Editors:
Professor Badian [NYR, December 20], though admirably knowledgeable in other ways, misunderstands his army manual: A mule (or horse) 14.1 hands high is 14 hands, 1 inch, or 57 inches high. It is not 14-1/10 hands high, as Badian, reasonably but wrongly, thinks. The manual follows horsemen's convention, not the decimal system.
Warren Button
Buffalo, New York