The large number of measurements needed to describe fully the characteristics of biological specimens and other objects has always been tedious and time consuming. The work can be done much more rapidly and with greater accuracy with a digital caliper recently developed by us. The digital caliper is a new electronic instrument built to measure objects precisely throughout the range of 0.1 mm to 1.0 m. Calipers of several different discrete sizes make it possible to select the most convenient unit for the particular range of length and degree of accuracy desired.