Darwin, then twenty-three, was only three months into the nearly
five-year adventure that would transform his life and, eventually, the
way that humans saw themselves and other species. As the voyage’s
so-called scientific person, he would collect masses of rocks, fossils,
animals, and plants, periodically shipping his specimens to Cambridge in
containers ranging from barrels to pillboxes. Like other naturalists of
his time, though, his primary documentary tool was the written
word,
and during the voyage he drew many of his words from a slim volume
called “Werner’s Nomenclature of
Colours,”
published in 1814 by the Scottish artist Patrick Syme.
Syme’s guide, a facsimile of which will be released in early February by
Smithsonian Books, contains samples, names, and descriptions of a
hundred and ten colors, ranging from Snow White to Asparagus Green to
Arterial Blood Red to, finally, Blackish Brown. Based on a color-naming
system developed in the late eighteenth century by the German
mineralogist Abraham Werner, the guide is full of geological
comparisons: Grayish White is likened to granular limestone, Brownish
Orange to Brazilian topaz. Syme, a flower painter and art teacher, added
comparisons from the living world. To Werner’s eyes, the Berlin Blue
that Darwin saw in the Atlantic sky resembled a sapphire; to Syme, the
wing feathers of a jay.
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