490 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cipal part of the day's work in the cool of the morning, and eats his 

 principal meal in the cool of the evening, who rests during the hottest 

 hour of the afternoon, and takes active exercise only in the swimming- 

 school, may indulge in the dietetic prerogatives of the higher lati- 

 tudes ; Nature will condone his beefsteaks, pork-fritters, and some of 

 his cocktails ; his mince-pies will not rise and bear witness against him. 

 But the happier biped who can waive those prerogatives will free 

 his stomach from the necessity of digesting winter food in a summer 

 climate, and, in return, will enjoy the freedom of the land, the privilege 

 to work, play, eat, rest, laugh, or get mad, at any time he pleases. 

 He has reconciled himself to Nature, and shares the natural rights of 

 the creatures who have not forfeited their earthly paradise ; for the 

 artificial comforts of the North are, after all, only more or less imper- 

 fect imitations of the gratuitous luxuries which our forefathers en- 

 joyed in their tropical garden home. 



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ASSOCIATION OF COLORS WITH SOUNDS. 



By HENEI DE PAEVILLE. 



POPULAR expressions are often very significant. "I saw three 

 dozen lights of all colors," or some similar expression, may fre- 

 quently be heard from persons who have received violent blows on the 

 head or face. Under the influence of shocks of this kind, the eye really 

 seems to see infinite numbers of sparks. Shocks of a certain class im- 

 pressed upon the nervous system seem to have the faculty of producing 

 phenomena of light. This remark has been suggested by the facts 

 we are about to relate, which lead us to suppose that sonorous vibra- 

 tions are susceptible in certain cases of provoking luminous sensations. 

 There are, in fact, persons who are endowed with such sensibility that 

 they can not hear a sound without at the same time perceiving colors. 

 Each sound to them has its peculiar color ; this word corresponds 

 with red and that one with green, one note is blue and another is yel- 

 low. This phenomenon, " color-hearing," as the English call it, has 

 been hitherto little observed. 



Dr. Nussbaumer, of Vienna, appears to have been the first person 

 who took serious notice of it. While still a child, when playing one 

 day with his brother, striking a fork against a glass to hear the ring- 

 ing, he discovered that he saw colors at the same time that he per- 

 ceived the sound ; and so well did he discern the color that, when he. 

 stopped his ears, he could divine by it how loud a sound the fork had 

 produced. His brother also had similar experiences. Dr. Nussbaumer 

 was afterward able to add to his own observations nearly identical ones 

 made by a medical student in Zurich. To this young man, musical 



