2025/11/26 by John E. Dixon · 1 voice · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Evolution and Science Education #History of Science and Natural History #Philosophy and History of Science
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0007087425101726
openalex publication_date 2025/11/26 · openalex created_date 2025/11/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Abstract During the forty-thousand-mile voyage of HMS Beagle (1831–6) Charles Darwin compiled an extensive corpus of manuscript materials, containing a highly specialized chromatic vocabulary. Darwin’s dedicated use of binomial colour terms, such as ‘aurora red’, ‘orpiment orange’ and ‘gamboge yellow’, was the result of his regular consultation of a work popular among British naturalists: Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1821) by Patrick Syme. A copy of this compact colour manual was among Darwin’s ‘most useful’ possessions on the Beagle . Now held in Cambridge University Library (DAR LIB T.620), Darwin’s copy of Syme’s book evidences both the difficulties of capturing accurate colour in exploratory natural history and the mechanisms by which this was attempted. Mining the Beagle archive for representations of coloured phenomena, this article reveals for the first time the extent of Darwin’s reliance on Werner’s Nomenclature for collecting and communicating chromatic data, across distance and against the fugitive, subjective and shifting nature of natural hues.