☙

læst [Danish]

1

In Denmark, a unit of capacity or mass used in describing the capacity of ships.

The Danes collected a tax on all goods passing through their waters, and for this reason it was convenient to use internationally recognized units rather than the Danish ones. By 1731, the Danish laest was synonymous with the Dutch last.

A premetric Danish unit of mass, about 2,000 kilograms. The skibslaest was larger, about 2,600 kilograms.

læst by capacity

= 12 tønder, for groats of buckwheat and millet, flaxseed, hemp-seed, Letter of 12 June 1639, had been 24 barrels

= 24 tønder for flaxseed and hempseed (1647)

= 22 tønder for rye and wheat (1632)

= 12 tønder for flour, bread, beans, peas, juniper berries, nuts, apples, butter, honey, cured meat, eel, cured fish. linseed oil, hempseed, rape and beet, beer, vinegar, Danish brandy, mead, wood ashes, soap, cement, steel.

= 12 tønder Lüneburg, of Danish and Norwegian salt.

= 18 tønder of French, Spanish or Scottish salt.

= 18 tønder of coal.

= 8 ahms for linseed oil, hemp-seed, rape and beet, honey, Danish brandy, beer vinegar

= 8 hogsheads for train-oil and lard (1640's)

= 2 casks for wine (1732)

læst by weight

= 12 skippunds = 3840 pund, Earliest for potash, lead, iron, brass, tartar, dried fish.

= 6 skippunds feathers, hemp, flax, hops, linen yarn, wax

= 3200 punds for lemon peel, sugar and clay (1732)