May 11, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



r4i 



energy is expended on the sensorj' side. 

 In the same way the savages lack of aes- 

 thetic appreciation of scenery may be ac- 

 counted for, since distinctness of detail 

 seems sometimes antagonistic to sesthetic 

 enjoyment. The commonest defect of eye- 

 sight among Europeans is myopia, but this 

 was found to be almost completely absent 

 among savages. The opposite condition, 

 hyperopia, which is apparently the normal 

 condition of the European child, was very 

 common among them, and, as it involved 

 accommodation for distant vision, it is 

 possible that the apparent visual acuity of 

 the savage had something to do with a 

 power of quicker and more exact accommo- 

 dation acquired by constant practice. Some 

 observations were made on vision at low 

 luminosities, and while these were not alto- 

 gether satisfactory they seemed to indicate 

 that the natives of Torres Straits were able 

 more quickly to adjust their eyes for dark- 

 ness after light, and to see better in the dark 

 than Eui'opeans. Their binocular vision 

 was normal. 



An investigation of the color sense is im- 

 portant in studying the relation between 

 language and ideas. There is a marked 

 paucity in the color vocabulary in the 

 Homeric poems and other ancient writings, 

 Gladstone, and later Geiger, argued from 

 this that there was an actual deficiency in 

 color sense among the ancients and that an 

 evolution in color sense has taken place 

 within historical times. Dr. Eivers has 

 carefully studied the color nomenclature of 

 various races. The simplest he found was 

 among some North Queensland natives, a 

 number of whom had only three color terms. 

 The next simplest was at Ki wailsland, at the 

 mouth of the Fly Eiver, British New Guinea, 

 where there was no name ' for blue apart 

 from black.' The two Torres Straits lang- 

 uages, Murray Island and Mabuiag, were 

 more extensive. In these four vocabularies 

 four stages may be seen in the evolution 



of color languages exactly as deducted by 

 Geiger, red being the most definite, and the 

 colors at the other end of a spectrum the 

 least so. It was noteworthy, too, that the 

 order of these people in respect to culture 

 was the same as in regard to development 

 of words for colors. The Eskimo, Dr. 

 Rivers observed, differed radically from the 

 languages of the tropical peoples he had ex- 

 amined in possessing an extremely well de- 

 veloped color vocabulary. The epithets 

 used for colors in Homer were discussed and 

 the conclusion was arrived at that the 

 features of his color language were essent- 

 ially of the same nature as those found 

 among primitive peoples of the present day. 



Speaking of the objective examination of 

 color sense in Torres Straits, Dr. Eivers 

 said the people show no confusion between 

 red and green, but they did between blue 

 and green. The investigation of their color 

 names, he thought, showed that to them 

 blue must be a duller and darker color than 

 it was to us, and indeed the tintometer had 

 afforded evidence of a distinct quantitative 

 deficiency in their perception of blue, 

 though the results were far from proving 

 blindness to blue. Dr. Elver's then dis- 

 cussed some of the objections that had 

 been urged against the theory of an histor- 

 ical evolution of color sense, coming to the 

 the conclusion that it was not to be lightly 

 put aside, though it could not be regarded 

 as fully demonstrated. Next he considered 

 some of the factors that determine the 

 special characteristics of primitive color 

 language, giving some instances, from 

 widely separated parts of the world, in 

 which names of colors seemed to be derived 

 from the same natural objects. 



None of the Torres Straits natives were 

 superior in acuteness of hearing to one mem- 

 ber of the expedition, while the majority 

 were inferior. No great weight, however, 

 could be attached to the observations, be- 

 cause all the men were divers — an occupa- 



