The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-10-13
COLOR-BLINo SAILORS.
OF English Jack Tars Four Per Cent. Can
Not Distinguish Colors.

OF English Jack Tars -Four Per Cent. Can
Not Distinguish Colors.
Some interesting facts about color
blindness will be found in the annual
report by the marine department of
the board of trade on the application
of color tests The report shows abun-
dainty the Importance of a proper
guarantee being obtained that the cam
didates for certificates as masters and
mates in the British mercantile marine
should possess, among other qualitica-
tions, perfect eyesight for the per-
ception of colors. Tests are applied to
such candidates, and also to seafaring
persons who may desire an examina-
ton of this kind, although not seeking
to become officers.
In proportion to the number exam
ined the failures last year were the
most numerous in the latter class,
above four per cent of the applicants
being rejected, while among the in
tending officers only about three
fourths per cent. failed to satisfy the
test But in either case the percent
age rejected last year was above the
average. Taking all ranks, the candi-
dates were above five thousand, and,
although sixty-one failures may seem a
small proportion, yet the defects of Wis
ion in several cases were found to be so
serious that it is a matter for some
alarm as to what might have been the
result, supposing such peculiarities had
not been detected. Red and green are,
of course, the lights by which naviga-
ton is guarded after nightfalL Yet
in the examination with colored glasses
we find sixteen candidates installing
red for green, and eight in like man
ner taking green for red If we reckon
all the various shades of green which
were enormously pronounced to be red,
the mistakes of this nature amount 20
lightweight. In seventeen instances
green was declared to be blue, and in a
like number of cases bottle-green was
pronounced yellow.
The confusion in color in the vision
of most of the rejected candidates sug-
gests the idea that. according to their
perceptions they must look out upon a
world very differently tinted from that
which is surveyed by people possessing
eyesight of the normal character. When
green appears as white, of what color
is the grass? and when white appears
as green, of what color is the snow?
Errors of this description occur among
the examinations conducted with col
ored cards. Where green is taken for
drab, in what Quaker garb must rural
scenes appearl Let us imagine a drab
lawn or a drab tree! Yet in fourteen
cases were the cards thus misappre-
hended. BY a sort of compensation,
four instances occur in which green APP
pears as drab. while drab is beheld as
green. One candidate described a green
card as having mo color" The posi-
bility of proving black to be white was
nearly attained by sailor, to whom a
white card was light green and black
one dark green. The mistakes were
more especially numerous where the
test was made with colored glasses. OF
perplexing. 1t took on as many as
seven different shades, of which fifty
nine were red, followed by lesser num-
bers in yellow, blue, white, pink and
neutral. A strange perversity of vision
was detected in candidate who had
served twenty years at sea, to whom
colored glasses, whether red, green,
bottle-green or a neutral tint, all APP
peared as yellow, pale green either be-
ing red or white, while drab card was
said to be green.-London Standard.