14 Color Standards and Nomenclature. 



lished through common usage. This very important 

 consideration has induced the author to retain such of 

 the old standards as can be matched in the present work, 

 even though some of them do not agree strictly with 

 either his own or the usual conception of the colors in 

 question. An asterisk (*.) preceding a color name in- 

 dicates that the name in question is adopted from the 

 older work, the variation between different copies of the 

 work requiring the selection , in the new one, of a color rep- 

 resenting as nearly as possible an average of the former. 



In any systematically arranged scheme, unless the 

 number of colors shown is practically unlimited, it will, 

 necessarily, be impossible to find represented thereon a 

 certain proportion of colors comprised among even a 

 very limited number selected at random, or only rough- 

 ly classified. Hence many (thirty-six, or more than 

 five per cent.) of the colors shown in the old "Nomen- 

 clature of Colors" fall into the blank intervals of the 

 present work, being intermediate either in hue or tone, 

 or chroma, sometimes all. It is necessary of course to 

 provide some means for the correlation of these with the 

 present scheme, which is done by the list on page 41, 

 where the positiou of each is shown. 



The question of giving representations of metallic 

 colors in this work was at one time considered; but the 

 idea was abandoned for the reason that these are in 

 reality only ordinary colors reflected from a metallic or 

 burnished surface, or appearing as if so reflected; the 

 actual hue is precisely the same, though often change- 

 able according to angle of impact of the light rays, and 

 relative position of the eye, this changeableness being 

 sometimes due to interference.* Colors again vary, 

 without actual difference of hue, in regard to quality of 

 texture or surface; that is to say, the color may be quite 



*See Rood, Modern Chromatics, pages 50-52. 



