cable, but whose ideal conditions it follows as far as the
limitations of pigments permit.

(130) Besides its value in education as setting all our color notions in
order, and supplying a simple method for their clear expression, it
promises to do away with much of the misunderstanding that accompanies
the every-day use of color.

(131) Popular color names are incongruous, irrational, and often
ludicrous. One must smile in reading the list of 25 steps in a scale of
blue, made by Schiffer-Muller in 1772:--

A. _a._ White pure.
_b._ White silvery or pearly.
_c._ White milky.
B. _a._ Bluish white.
_b._ Pearly white.
_c._ Watery white.
C. Blue being born.
D. Blue dying or pale.
E. Mignon blue.
F. Celestial blue, or sky-color.
G. _a._ Azure, or ultramarine.
_b._ Complete or perfect blue.
_c._ Fine or queen blue.
H. Covert blue or turquoise.
I. King blue (deep).
J. Light brown blue or indigo.
K. _a._ Persian blue or woad flower.
_b._ Forge or steel blue.
_c._ Livid blue.
L. _a._ Blackish blue.
_b._ Hellish blue.
_c._ Black-blue.
M. _a._ Blue-black or charcoal.
_b._ Velvet black.
_c._ Jet black.

The advantage of spacing these 25 colors in 13 groups, some with three
and others with but one example, is not apparent; nor why ultramarine
should be several steps above turquoise, for the reverse is generally
true. Besides which the hue of turquoise is greenish, while that of
ultramarine is purplish, but the list cannot show this; and the
remarkable statement that one kind of blue is "hellish," while another
is "celestial," should rest upon an experience that few can claim.
Failing to define color-value and color-hue, the list gives no hint of
color-strength, except at C and D, where one kind of blue is "dying"
when the next is "being born," which not inaptly describes the color
memory of many a person. Finally, it assures us that Queen blue is
"fine" and King blue is "deep."

This year the fashionable shades are "burnt onion" and "fresh spinach."
The florists talk of a "pink violet" and a "green pink." A maker of inks
describes the red as a "true crimson scarlet," which is a contradiction
in terms. These and a host of other names borrowed from the most
heterogeneous sources, become outlawed as soon as the simple color terms
and measures of this system are adopted.

Color anarchy is replaced b