The free settling velocity of cylinders and disks falling in quiescent Newtonian and power law liquids has been measured over wide ranges of experimental conditions of the particle Reynolds number (10(-5) - similar to 300), power law flow behaviour index (0.31-1) and the length-to-diameter ratio, -0.4 - similar to 14. The corresponding range of sphericity is 0.62 to 0.86. An existing drag expression which has been tested extensively for spherical particles falling in Newtonian and in power law fluids has been slightly modified here for non-spherical particles. In particular, the use of this drag expression necessitates a knowledge of an equal volume sphere diameter (to evaluate the Reynolds number and drag coefficient) and the ratio of the surface area to the projected area of a nonspherical particle. With these modifications, the approach outlined here reproduces the present and the literature data for a wide range of non-spherical particles including cones, prisms, needles, cylinders settling in both Newtonian and power law fluids with reasonable levels of accuracy. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.