[Taxacom] Units of length in Francis Walker's descriptions of insects

[Dilrukshan Wijesinghe]

Thank you very much Mary, Brian & Pierre. The document attached by Pierre with a previous discussion of this topic on Taxacom was especially helpful. As Brian & Mary also mentioned 1 English line (such as used by Francis Walker) was 1/12 of an English inch and thus = 2.117 mm.
Thank you, all!
Priyantha 
1 German line = 2.191 mm1 French line = 2.250 mm

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On Sunday, November 4, 2018, 12:28 PM, Pierre Morisset <pierre.morisset at globetrotter.net> wrote:

This was discussed in Taxacom some years ago, around 2005 if my memories 
are right.I had copied the exchange in a Word document. Here it is in 
case it might be useful to some of you.

Pierre Morisset


  le 04-11-2018, Dr Brian Taylor a écrit :
> My understanding, as an entomologist and I am almost sure it is as was used
> in the Francis Walker's descriptions, is that one line = 1/12 of an imperial
> inch, i.e. 1 line = 2.117 mm.
>
>
>
>
> On 04/11/2018, 14:04, "Mary Barkworth" <Mary.Barkworth at usu.edu> wrote:
>
>> From wikipedia:
>> "The line (abbreviated L or l or ‴ or lin.) was a small English unit of
>> length, variously reckoned as ​1⁄10, ​1⁄12, ​1⁄16, or ​1⁄40 of an inch. It was
>> not included among the units authorized as the British Imperial system in
>> 1824".
>> I had thought it was 1/12 of an inch. Wrong, again. Does anyone know whether
>> one usage prevailed in a particular discipline? Using 1/12 gave me numbers
>> that seemed reasonable when looking at grass descriptions.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Dilrukshan
>> Wijesinghe
>> Sent: Sunday, November 4, 2018 6:58 AM
>> To: Taxacom List <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
>> Subject: [Taxacom] Units of length in Francis Walker's descriptions of insects
>>
>> This must be common knowledge to entomologists better informed than I am: Can
>> someone tell me if the units in Francis Walker's descriptions of insects are
>> tenths of an inch? E.g. does "5 1/2 lin." = 0.55 inch?
>>  Thanks.
>>
>> Priyantha
>> D. P. Wijesinghe
>> dpwijesinghe at yahoo.com
>>
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