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 position 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

*Sce Itoild, Modern Chromatics, pages 50-52.