Dimensions of the City of Zion
In the Plat of the City of Zion, one of the statements describing the drawing states, “On the north and south of the plot where the line is drawn is to be laid off for barns stables etc for the use of the city so that no barns or stables will be in the City among the houses.”
The barns and stables (industrial zones) are not right next to the city. There is a double line drawn on the figure that is right next to the inner square and then a single line that is 660 feet South of green street that is the edge of the community’s population center. The square of the community, which is a “mile square would include half of the easements all around.
This provides a 660-foot-wide easement to the south for transport and utilities. Then there would need to be an easement of 330 feet to the East and west of the city. The inner city square where everyone lives and the outer mirrored blocks which have barns and stables (industry and animals) are shared with the easements – 660 feet in the East/west Direction and 330 feet in the North/South direction.
Most land masses where the cities will be built are about twice as long in the East west direction than they are in the North and South direction. Therefore, the larger roads or underground train systems would be in the larger East/West easements. In fact, the Plat has East at the top instead of North taking it back to much older conventions that were common in the 1500’s for maps.
The easements around the cities provide a green space that would be used for grazing animals but would also be reserved for utilities. There are green, wild spaces (rather than manicured lawns) children to play, while underneath, there are underground transit and utilities.
The size of the housing part of the city is 6,336 feet square, including ½ of the easements all the way around (660’ on the North and South and 330 feet on the East and West) or 96 chains square.[1]
Because the furlong was “one plough’s furrow long” and a furrow was the length a plough team was to be driven without resting, the length of the furlong and the acre vary regionally, nominally due to differing soil types. In England the acre was 4,840 square yards, but in Scotland it was 6,150 square yards and in Ireland 7,840 square yards. In all three countries, fields were divided in acres and thus the furlong became a measure commonly used in horse racing, archery, and civic planning.
The Lots were to be 4 perches along the front and 20 perches back. The village square 8 rods wide… or 132 feet. A furlong was 10 chains and the village square is one furlong or 660 feet long. An acre is one chain or 66 feet wide and 660 feet long.
From North to South the Plat or “Plot” drawing has a 660’ wide easement that is blank, then a double line and a 132’ wide “street” (public square) that is a colored in green, then a 660’ square with 20 lots, 10 on each side, then another 132’ “street” or public square and so on totaling 7 660’ squares. surrounded on all sides with 132’ “streets”. 7 x 660’=4,620’ plus 8x 132’ streets =1056’ Plus ½(660’+660’) easements both sides total= 6,336’ or 1.2 mile in the North to South direction including ½ of the easements both sides.
From East to West the Plat or “Plot” drawing has a Middle row of Lots that are 990’ x 660’ or 15 acers each. Here, the three center blocks, are situated. Two blocks have 12 district buildings each, while the third is the “bishop’s storehouse”. There are also three rows of 660’ square blocks on each side of the middle larger blocks.
990 + 6 x 660 = 4,950, while there are 8 streets, each 132 (a total of 1056 feet), and therefore the total is 6,006 feet. A half of the easements both east and west which are 330’ wide=330’ yields a total of 6,336 feet or 1.2 miles. If we add up all of the ½ acer lots that are in the community, there are 960 of them. If we allocate 10 lots per village then we have 96 villages. There are 24 public buildings and so if we allocate 4 villages per district then every district has a public building.
Since the Plat specifies that there can be only one “house” per lot then we can determine that each of those Houses is in modern terms an apartment building with 4 floors of apartments and a podium or ground floor that can be a garage during early development stages and later as cars are removed and the community becomes walkable that area can be converted to businesses.
If each floor has 25 people (a unit with a captain of 7-12 Limited partners) and 4 floors each with a unit then each apartment building is a branch of around 100 individuals. This creates a village with around 1,000 individuals and a district of around 4,000 and a community with 24 districts of around 96,000 people.
6,336 feet is = to 1.2 miles. The city is 1.2 miles square. The prescription states that the plat contains one mile square. The definition of a mile has changed over time and the dimensions that have been established fit within the possibilities that existed over time, especially when considering that the dimensions were given in Rods and perches, and chains. Therefore, we need to go back to the period when those units were used to find the definition of a mile.
Before the statute of the English parliament, there was confusion on the length of the “mile”. The Irish mile was 6,721 feet and the Scottish mile was 5,951 feet.[6] Perhaps the earliest tables of English linear measures, Arnold’s Customs of London (c. 1500) indicates a mile consisted of 8 furlongs, each of 625 feet, for a total of 5,000 feet.[7] For other “miles” see the list below. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile
If we average the Irish mile of 6,721 feet and the Scottish mile of 5,951 feet = 6,336 feet – exactly the mile that Joseph used in the Plat “plot” and the mile that was used in the area of England where Matthew Tyndale (1490-1536) grew up (Gloucestershire), where there is a monument built to honor him. It is also where I built a High Pressure Diamond making plant in cooperation with Reed- Hycalog (in Stonehouse Gloucestershire) in the 1990s. One of my associate engineers taught me that the mile that was used in his area prior to the queen making the mile 5,280 feet in 1593 the mile in Gloucestershire was 6,336’.
This discovery convinced me that the Plat “plot” was written in the language of William Tyndale. It meant that I needed to interpret all of the words including the Mile as if we were living in the time of William Tyndale. A mile is 6,336 feet. A street is a 132- wide public square, and is not a paved road as is the application of the term today. A house is an apartment building for 100 people and 5 stories high like the best construction in 16th Century England. Width of Lot that each apartment is on is 66’ x 330’ and ½ acer.
Hampton court Palace “house” Hampton Court Palace was originally built in 1515 by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey as a luxurious private residence. However, in 1529, Wolsey fell from favor and the palace was taken over by King Henry VIII.
William Tyndale was sponsored by Humphrey Monmouth who was a wealthy merchant in London and they would have both known of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey who was against the publication of the Bible in English and who built the Hampton court Palace. When the Plat uses the word “house” we need to be considering the best of the times and this is a photo of the best “house” of that era.
These palaces had rooms for hundreds of people like the apartment buildings in NewVista do and this kind of standard is what NewVistas aspires to so that all who come and live in the community are living in a mansion with gardens behind and public parks and square in front as we see with this mansion.
A NewVista community of 96,000 people ends up a diamond shape that surrounds the inner square city and so there is 2.88 square miles of land occupied by each community. 1.44 square miles for the population square and 1.44 square miles for the mirrored blocks that create the industrial zone.
[1] A chain is 66 standard foot units. It was the standard measurement for land in 16th century England, and is used for laying out the plat. A Rod is the same length as a perch, or a pole The measure in today’s terms is 16.5 feet. 4 rods make a chain. These measures were standardized in 1607 by Edmund Gunter.
