A priori bounds for geodesic diameter. Part I. Integral chains with coefficients in a complete normed commutative group

As service to the community, we provide – for Euclidean space – a basic treatment of locally rectifiable chains and of the complex of locally integral chains. In this setting, we may beneficially develop the idea of a complete normed commutative group bundle over the Grassmann manifold whose fibre is the coefficient group of the chains. Our exposition also sheds new light on some algebraic aspects of the theory. Finally, we indicate an extension to a geometric approach to locally flat chains centring on locally rectifiable chains rather than completion procedures.