92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pear to me of the same somber hue. The embroidered cushion on the 

 lounge, the carpet on the floor, even the flowers in the vase they are 

 all black and white, or at the best yellow. The little world that sur- 

 rounds me is colorless. 



Imagine, then, for a moment the whole world deprived of color. 

 How would it look ? An enamored poet singing to his adored in the 

 world as we at present know it might, perhaps, prelude his ditty thus : 



" Thou rosy maiden with rich, ruby lips, 



And hair as golden as the sun's bright rajs ! " 



Translated into the language of a poet of the colorless world, this 

 strain would run about as follows : 



" Thou grayish maiden with dark, jetty lips, 

 And hair as white as freshly fallen snow ! " 



We, who are accustomed to the charm of color, turn away shudder- 

 ingly from such a world, in which we would all look like the figures 

 in a steel-engraving, printed in the blackest of ink on the whitest of 

 paper. 



And yet, as I have said before, there are people who live in such a 

 world continually, and must continue to live in it to their days' end. 

 Fortunately, however, the instances of people who are totally color- 

 blind that is to say, who are absolutely incapable of experiencing the 

 sensation of color are extremely rare ; and, to the few people so 

 afflicted, the deprivation is not so great as it would seem to be to us, 

 since, having never known the poetry of color, they do not feel the 

 want of it. 



But, although there are only very few people indeed who are total- 

 ly color-blind, there are, on the other hand, a very large number of 

 persons, especially among the male sex, who are at least partially so ; 

 and it is even more difficult to picture to ourselves the world as it is 

 presented to their eyes than to imagine a world entirely destitute of 

 color. Defective color-vision of this kind is most frequently manifest- 

 ed in the inability to see the difference between red and green. A 

 person thus afflicted can detect no difference between the ripe cherry 

 on the tree and the leaves by which it is surrounded, or between the 

 strawberry and the stems and leaves of the plant on which it grows. 

 Even the bright red of some flowers may only present itself to such 

 persons as a lighter shade of the color of the leaves, while yellow and 

 blue are perceived by them quite as distinctly as by persons of normal 

 vision. To them, therefore, the world must bear a resemblance in 

 color to some of the old pottery wliich is decorated in blue, yellow, 

 and black, on a whitish ground. There are other varieties of de- 

 fective color-vision, all of which may be generally described as an in- 

 ability to perceive certain colors, while the perception of certain other 

 colors is normal. The simplest method of picturing to ourselves the 



