Hi. I've a newbie question.
My circuit breaker panel has 240volt service entering it. I removed
the cover to investigate how the breakers are installed and tested some
of the breaker leads with a voltmeter. The breakers are arranged in 2
columns, with 6 breakers in each column. I see two black cables, one
to each column, and one white cable to the neutral bus.

While holding the probe to the lowest circuit breaker in the first
column ("R#1, C#1") , I found that the next row up in the same column
("R#2,C#1) had no difference in potential. But both were 120V above
neutral (which makes sense to me). However, the difference between
R#1,C#1 and R#3,C#1 was 240 volts. Same for R#1,C#1 and R#4,C#1. R#5
& R#6 go back to no difference in potential over R#1.

Is there some type of standard crisscross pattern of feeders behind the
circuit breakers? I remember reading about this somewhere... maybe to
reduce the chance of overloading one feeder over the other??

I'm sure any electrician or someone familiar with an empty breaker box
can answer this. Please help.

Thank you.
Anthony M. Falcone