Ancient Measurements => Lines

[Jacques Melot]

  Le 07-10-2004, ? 19:11 +0100, nous recevions de Tony Irwin :

>Chris -
>Burmeister's Manual of Entomology (translated by Shuckard, 1836, p.26) says
>" A universally known measure, - the Paris line, - the twelfth part of an
>inch, has been adopted as unit for the determination of the length of
>insects."
>One-twelfth of an English inch is 2.117 mm, but the Paris line was
>one-twelfth of a Paris inch (pouce) - i.e. 2.258 mm (all rounded up).
>Fortunately when the French aristocracy were "all rounded up", the metric
>system was introduced and we eventually adopted millimetres   :-)



    ? propos... Je rappelle - beaucoup semblent l'avoir oubli? - que
la Grande Bretagne a d?clar? adopter le syst?me m?trique en ?change
du m?ridien de Paris. Ce dernier devint le m?ridien de Greenwich,
mais nous attendons toujours que la Grande Bretagne adopte le syst?me
m?trique...

    Il est d'autant plus actuel de rappeler ce march? de dupes, qu'il
y a quelques ann?es Greenwich c?l?bra son m?ridien, sans, ? ma
connaissance, aucune r?f?rence au don fait pas la France et encore
moins en rappelant la promesse non tenue d'adoption du syst?me
m?trique.

    Et apr?s on ira s'?tonner des mauvaises relations entre la France
et la Grande Bretagne !

    Faut-il donc qu'apr?s la Guerre de Cent ans on en rajoute :
l'affaire du m?ridien de Greenwich n'?tant qu'un ?v?nement
symptomatique parmi d'autres (cf. aussi r?cemment le dernier vol de
l'avion Concorde avec ostentation de drapeau... uniquement le drapeau
anglais !).

    Les Fran?ais font-ils la m?me chose de leur c?t? aux d?pens de la
Grande-Bretagne ? C'est possible. En tout cas, tout ceci est st?rile
et il serait temps que ces vexations mutuelles cessent. Les conflits
d'int?r?ts naturels in?vitables (comme entre tous pays) suffisent
d?j? amplement, sans qu'il faille en rajouter de cette mani?re peu
digne.

    Jacques Melot



>Tony Irwin
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Taxacom Discussion List [mailto:TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU]On
>Behalf Of christian thompson
>Sent: 06 October 2004 19:46
>To: TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
>Subject: Ancient Measurements => Lines
>
>
>In the early literature, at least for insects (Entomology), many
>european authors gave measurements in LINES (lignes in French), but
>there seems to be confuse about whether this was a uniform standard
>across European countries and what a line is equal to.
>
>Some earlier workers, Scopoli (1763, Entomologia Carniolica) printed a
>scale in the front of his work. His line was equal to 2.14 mm. Fairchild
>(1967, Pacific Insects 9: 75) wrote that the line of Wiedemann (another
>earlier worker from 1810-30) used a line equal to 2.18.  Once I copied
>information from an "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary" which had a table
>indicating that a line from France was equal to 2.256 mm, 2.12 for
>England, 1.9 mm for Chile. Unfortunately I copied that information when
>I was a graduate student back in the mid 1960's and didn't note the
>edition of the Webster's.
>
>If any one have better information or citations on lines as a unit of
>measurement in taxonomy, I would appreciate them..
>
>
>
>F. Christian Thompson
>Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
>c/o Smithsonian Institution
>MRC-0169 NHB
>PO Box 37012
>Washington, DC 20013-7012
>(202) 382-1800 voice
>(202) 786-9422 FAX
>cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
>www.diptera.org  web site