704 



NATURE 



[Oct. 31, 1878 



*om^ — Blood (arterial). 



Coat of a horse. 



The dragon or serpent. 



The rainbow. 



The jackal. 



The lion. 



Cloaks or mantles. 



Red prows of ships. 



The palm tree. 

 'Po8o€ts — The rose. 



Olive oil. 

 Kvafcof — Bronze. 



Dark eyebrows and hair. 



A dark cloud. 



The dark coat of a horse. 



Masses of armed men. 



Black mourning garments. 



Sea sand. 



The sea beating on rocks. 



Red prows of ships. 



The dragon or serpent. 

 XXtopos — A pale face. 



Fresh pulled twigs. 



Honey. 



Olive wood bark. 



The nightingale. 

 Oij/ox//^ — Red wine. 



Oxen. 



[The sea in circumstances of darkness.] 



Group II. — Objects conveying to the Colour-blind the 

 Sensation of Bltie, or Blue Darkened. 



nop0vpeof — Various articles of clothing and furni- 

 ture. 



The rainbow. 



Blood (venous). 



A dark cloud. 



Waves and the darkening sea. 



Death. 

 'loetSi/s — The violet. 



The sea. 



Iron. 



Dark dyed wool. 



[Dark living sheep]. 



Extra Group. — Objects conveying to the Colour-blind a 

 Neutral Sensation. 



UoXic's — Human hair in old age. 

 Iron. 



The hide of a wolf. 

 The sea. 



I think the following propositions may be now taken as 

 made out on the evidence supplied by Mr. Gladstone : — 



1. That Homer's applications of colour epithets are in 

 many cases inconsistent with the normal ideas in regard 

 to them. This is the first and most general symptom of 

 colour-blindness. 



2. That this inconsistency is particularly noticeable in 

 the use of the expressions for red and green. This is a 

 further and more definite symptom, showing the peculiarly 

 defective sensations in regard to these particular colours. 



3. But that when the objects referred to are classified in 

 two groups, according to the two colour sensations they 

 respectively offer to the colour-blind eye, the use of the 

 colour-epithets becomes consistent, no epithet belonging 

 to one group being used (except in one doubtful case) for 

 an object belonging to the other. This is a still more 

 definite symptom, pointing, as it seems to me, to the 

 dichromic nature of the malady. 



It is not my province to carry the matter further ; but 

 if the explanation offered be correct, it may involve some 

 very interesting considerations. 



One may ask whether the defect in vision which gave 

 rise to these singular uses of the colour epithets was 

 likely to have been general among the people of the 

 time? Do the expressions convey what would have been 

 the general sense of the Greeks of the Homeric age ? If so, 

 we may fully concur in Mr. Gladstone's hypothesis, that the 

 organ of colour was but partially developed among them, 

 while at the same time we learn exactly what was the 

 nature of their deficiency. It would be a most interesting 

 fact in physiology and optics if we could show, in this 

 way, that dichromatism was an early stage of human 

 vision, out of which the present more comprehensive and 

 perfect faculty has been gradually developed in the course 

 of some thousands of years. 



But on the other hand, it is quite possible that this 

 defect was not general, that it existed only in the person 

 or the writer whose language exhibits it. If this view is 

 correct it may have a most important bearing on a dispute 

 that has long agitated the scholarly world, namely, as to 

 the authorship of the Homeric Poems. 



If we can trace, running through the whole of these 

 immortal works, the distinct and consistent evidence of 

 a well-marked personal peculiarity in the writer — a posi- 

 tive characteristic by which his individual identity may 

 be, in all parts, clearly inferred — we have the strongest 

 possible proof, by internal evidence, of the existence of a 

 single author, to whom the whole of the poems are due. 



William Pole 



NOTES 



Among the well-deserved decorations awarded in connection 

 with the Paris Exhibition is that of Grand Officer of the Legion 

 of Honour to the eminent chemist M. Pasteur. 



At the annual meeting of the Mathematical Society, Novem- 

 ber 14, Lord Rayleigh, F.R.S., instead of giving an address, 

 will read a paper on the Instability of Jets. 



In connection with the operations of the United States Fish 

 Commission during the past summer, Harper's Weekly furnishes 

 some particulars of what may be considered as one of the most 

 important discoveries of recent date in regard to the geology of 

 North America. During the operations of the Commission a 

 formation was met with which belongs probably to the miocene 

 or later tertiary, as shown by the occurrence of numerous frag- 

 ments of eroded, hard, compact, calcareous sandstone and sandy 

 limestone. These are usually perforated by the burrows of 

 Saxicava rugosa, and contain in more or less abundance fossil 

 shells and fragments of lignite, radiates, &c. These fragments 

 have generally been hauled up by trawl lines from depths of 

 from 50 to 250 fathoms, and have already furnished a large 

 number of species, some of them northern forms still living on 

 the New England coast, others for the most part extinct. A 

 conspicuous fossil of an undescribed species belongs to the genus 

 Isocardia. Other genera are Mya, Ensatella, Cyprina, Natica, 

 Cardium, Cyclocardia, Fttsus, Latirus, Turritella, &c. The 

 specimens so far obtained range from George's Bank to Ban- 

 quereau, a region of at least several hundred miles in length, 

 and extending along the outer banks from off Newfoundland 

 nearly to Cape Cod. Indeed, it is suggested by Prof. Verrill 

 that the formation constitutes in large part the plateaus known 

 as fishing banks, frequented by such large numbers of cod, halibut, 

 &c. The credit of bringing these specimens to light is due 

 chiefly to Mr. Warren Upham, who originally visited Gloucester 

 for the purpose of investigating certain glacial drift and fossil- 

 iferous deposits, and who obtained many of the specimens from 

 fishermen who had brought them in and kept them as curiosities. 



In the summer of 1877 an expedition in the interest of the 

 Princeton (U.S.) College Museum of Geology and Archae- 

 ology was fitted out for the purpose of making explorations in 



