The motive of this work is THE STANDARDIZATION OF COLORS AND COLOR
NAMES.
The terminology of Science, the Arts, and various Industries has been
a most important factor in the development of their present high
efficiency. Measurements, weights, mathematical and chemical formulæ,
and terms which clearly designate practically every variation of form
and structure have long been standardized; but the nomenclature of
colors remains vague and, for practical purposes, meaningless, thereby
seriously impeding progress in almost every branch of industry and
research.
Many works on the subject of color have been published, but most of
them are purely technical, and pertain to the physics of color, the
painter's needs, or to some particular art or industry alone, or in
other ways are unsuited for the use of the zoologist, the botanist,
the pathologist, or the mineralogist; and the comparatively few
works on color intended specially for naturalists have all failed to
meet the requirements, either because of an insufficient number of
color samples, lack of names or other means of easy identification
or designation, or faulty selection and classification of the colors
chosen for illustration. More than twenty years ago the author of the
present work attempted to supply the deficiency by the publication
of a book[1] containing 186 samples of named colors, but the effort
was successful only to the extent that it was an improvement on its
predecessors; and, although still the standard of color nomenclature
among zoologists and many other naturalists, it nevertheless is
seriously defective in the altogether inadequate number of colors
represented, and in their unscientific arrangement. Fully realizing his
failure, the author, some two or three years later, began to devise
plans, gather materials, and acquire special knowledge of the subject,
in the hope that he might some day be able to prepare a new work which
would fully meet the needs of all who have use for it. Unfortunately,
his time has been so fully occupied with other matters that progress
has necessarily been slow; but after more than twenty years of sporadic
effort it has at last been completed.
Acknowledgments are due to so many friends for helpful suggestions
that it is hardly possible to name them all, or to specify the extent
or kind of help which each has rendered; but special mention should be
made of Mr. LEWIS E. JEWELL, of Johns Hopkins University; Dr. R. M.
STRONG, of the University of Chicago; Prof. W. J. SPILLMAN, of the U.
S. Department of Agriculture; Mr. WILLIAMS WELCH, of the U. S. Signal
Service; Mr. MILTON BRADLEY, of Springfield, Mass.; Dr. P. G. NUTTING,
of the U. S. Bureau of Standards; Mr. P. L. RICKER, of the Bureau of
Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture; and Mr. J. L. RIDGWAY,
of the U. S. Geological Survey. The late Professor S. P. LANGLEY, then
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was good enough to take a
kindly interest in this undertaking and gave the author assistance
for which he is glad to make acknowledgment. More than to all others,
however, is the author deeply indebted to Mr. John E. THAYER, of
Lancaster, Mass., and Señor Don JOSÉ C. ZELEDÓN, of San José, Costa
Rica, for aid so indispensible that without it the work could not have
been completed.
To Dr. G. GRÜBLER & CO., of Leipzig, Germany, the author is under
obligations for the gift of a nearly complete set of their celebrated
coal-tar dyes, which have proven quite necessary to the work,
especially in the coloring of the Maxwell disks on which the color
scheme is based.
The reproduction of the plates has been a difficult matter, involving
not only expensive experimentation, but more than three years of
unremitting labor. Vastly different from the ordinary lines of
commercial color work, the correct copying of each one of the 1115
colors of the original plates developed many perplexing and often
discouraging problems, which were finally solved through Mr. A. B.
HOEN'S expert knowledge of chemistry and pigments; the skill, industry,
and patience of the firm's head colorist, Mr. FRANK PORTUGAL, and the
personal interest of both these gentlemen. It is, therefore, with the
greatest pleasure that the author's grateful acknowledgment is made to
the firm of A. HOEN & COMPANY for the satisfactory manner in which they
have fulfilled their contract.