174 



SCIENTIFIC NEAVS. 



[Feb. 24, i£ 



Science) gives an instance of a lady who associated the 

 names of the months with certain colours ; to her January, 

 February, and March were bright yellow ; April appeared 

 blue; May, a light yellow; June, bright green; July, 

 glaring yellow ; August, orange ; September, a golden 

 brown ; October, a dark brown, and November and De- 

 cember, grey. 



The predominance of yellow and compounds of yellow 

 is here to be noticed. 



Mr. K. A. Chipman communicated to Science a case of 

 three children who associated colours with the names oi 

 persons. To them Kate was red ; Mary, white ; Alice, 

 violet ; Dick, deep Vandyke brown ; and William, a 

 watery blue. 



Another person assigned to names a different set of 

 colours. To him, Mary, was dark red ; Abbie, tan ; 

 Lucy, dark blue ; Richard, light grey ; Atalanta, steel- 

 grey ; Charlotte, light red ; Claire, light blue ; Newcome, 

 dark red ; Lincoln, black ; Morse, brown ; Newhall, grey- 

 black ; Frank, dark green. 



Dr. Nussbaiimer, of Vienna, was, perhaps, the earliest 

 observer of this class of phenomena. When a child, 

 amusing himself by striking a fork against a glass to 

 hear the ringing, he observed that he saw colours at the 

 same time that he perceived the sound. So distinct was 

 the colour-perception that it he stopped his ears, he could 

 judge from it the loudness of the sound. He met after- 

 wards with a medical student in Zurich who had made 

 similar observations. To him musical notes were ex- 

 pressed by certain fixed colours. The high notes called 

 up bright colours, and the low notes dull shades 



M. Pedrono, an ophthalmist of Nantes, has observed 

 the same association in one of his friends. This person 

 had become so accustomed to the simultaneous percep- 

 tion of sounds and colours that he took no notice of it. 

 But one day one of his companions, in his presence, said, 

 speaking of a person not named, " Have you noticed 

 his voice ? It is as fine as a yellow dog " — a cant ex- 

 pression at that time in vogue. " Not at all," replied 

 Pedrono's friend ; " his voice is not yellow, it is pure 

 red." The whole company laughed loudly. "What!" 

 they said, " a red voice ? What do you mean ? " X 

 then explained the curious faculty which he possessed of 

 seeing the colour of voices. Each of the company wished 

 to learn the colour of his own voice, and X had to satisfy 

 their curiosity. 



According to M. Pedrono, this friend of his whom we 

 have above named X, did not seem to labour under 

 any defect either of sight or hearing. Nor was his 

 general health at all bad. Yet his sensitiveness to colour 

 was so delicate that the luminous impression seemed to 

 be made in advance of the sound impression. Before he 

 could possibly judge of the quality and intensityof a sound, 

 he knew whether it called up in his mind a red, a blue, a 

 yellow, or some other colour. Unlike the student of 

 Zurich, he did not find a change of colour accompanying 

 every modification of tone. A sharp note merely 

 seemed to him brighter, and a flat one duller than the 

 corresponding natural note. But the same piece played 

 upon different instruments produced various sensations. 

 The Breton air, " Au Hallaika," if played on a tenor 

 saxophone or a harmonium, was yellow ; on the clarioriet 

 it was red ; a blue on the piano. 



A certain Dr. Z., studied by Signor Ugheth, gave 

 some precise observations which were published in La 

 Natura in 1884. To him the sound of the flute was 

 always red, ranging from a dark red in the lower notes 



to a light red in the upper. Yellow predominated in the 

 sounds of the clarionet; the guitar and the trumpet were 

 golden yellow, and the piano white. 



We find colour sensations produced in some persons 

 by single letters, chiefly by the vowels. According to 

 Pedrono's friend, the vowels i and c (pronounced as in 

 Italian and Spanish) are attended by brilliant colours ; 

 on by dark colours, and a and o by intermediate shades. 

 To another person c seems yellow, a dark blue, o red. or 

 orange, and n black. The diphthongs give secondary 

 colours, eu (French) is grey, oi a light grey, and ue black. 

 Dr. Z. connects different colours with the vowels ; to him 

 a is black, e yellow, ; red, o white, and u coffee-coloured. 



Berti's subject finds u not coffee-coloured, but deep 

 blue, whilst e is grey instead of yellow. 



Among 596 persons questioned by Bleuller and 

 Lehmann in Germany, seventy-five answered that a was 

 black, o white, and i red. 



Some results published by Professor Holden, in Science, 

 assign very different colours to letters, and include also 

 consonants. To some of these observers a was a light 

 straw colour, b a grey, c a tan, d blue, e and /both black, 

 £■ a light straw, t'andj black, k blue, / black, m brown, n 

 dark blue, o light red, p light green, q blue, r and s light 

 straw, / green, m grey, v yellow, w blue, x grej", y and s 

 dark brown. 



To not a few persons numbers also appear to call up 

 colour-sensations. One such observer gives i as black, 

 2 as light cream, 3 as dark cream, 4 as brownish-red, 5 

 as black, 6 tan-colour, 7 greenish-black, 8 dark-straw, 9 

 mud-colour, 21 black and straw, 22 light cream, 23 dark 

 straw, and 24 light brown. 



Professor Holden gives another and a different set of 

 colours for numbers, thus : i black, 2 cream, 3 blue, 4 

 brown, 5 white, 6 crimson, 7 pink, 8 white, 9 greenish, 

 and 10 brown. 



When we attempt an explanation of these phenomena 

 we encounter crowds of difficulties. We have to ask, 

 are the facts mere hallucinations or do they spring from 

 accidental confusions of the auditory and visual nerve- 

 fibres ? It is established that there are motor nerve- 

 centres adapted to specific functions; we suggest that 

 there may be colour-centres near the sound-centres, and 

 these different centres may affect each other. But on 

 looking over the details of the phenomena we find little, 

 save complications. If a physicist were asked as to a 

 probable connection between sound and colours he would 

 doubtless suggest that each note of the gamut would 

 correspond to some one spectral colour, whilst noise, as 

 distinct from sound, would call up browns, olives, drabs, 

 and other impure colours. But no such regularity can 

 be traced. Moreover the connection of colours with 

 arithmetical figures, which are apprehended not by the 

 ear but the eye, remains totally unexplained. 



A New Lacquer. — Under the name of ardenbrite, a new 

 lacquer has recently been introduced by the Ardenbrite 

 Manufacturing Company, of 70, Southampton Row, Holborn. 

 It is claimed that the new lacquer is so fine that it is invisible 

 on the most delicate instruments, and so strong that it stands 

 weather, steam, smoke, sea air, and sea water ; gold, silver, 

 copper, steel, brass, and iron are said never to tarnish when 

 coated with it ; moreover it dries hard in half an hour in or 

 out of doors, ijuithout heat. We have had the ardenbrite tried 

 by a competent authority, and the result has been quite satis- 

 factory. We can, therefore, recommend it as being a valuable 

 acquisition for workshop purposes. — Electrical Review. 



