Black mass

“ With America's constant reiteration of the superiority of whiteness, the avid search on the part of the black masses for some key to chromatic perfection is easily understood. Now it would seem that science is on the verge of satisfying them. ”

“ We there pointed out that whether or not 'an abstract right to public employment exists,' Congress could not pass a law providing "* * * that no federal employee shall attend Mass or take any active part in missionary work." ”

“ Pure white is seen when all visible wavelengths are being reflected, and pure black is seen when all visible wavelengths are being absorbed and none reflected. Actually, we cannot see a truly black object, only the blackness from lack of reflected light in contrast to the light reflected from other substances. ”

“ The color of the skin, that important mark of race, may be best understood by looking at the darkest variety. The dark hue of the negro does not lie so deep as the innermost or true skin, which is substantially alike among all races of mankind. The negro, in spite of his name, is not black, but deep brown, and even this darkest hue does not appear at the beginning of life, for the new-born negro child is reddish-brown, soon becoming slaty-gray, and then darkening. Nor does the darkest tint ever extend over the negro's whole body, but his soles and palms are brown. ”

“ In this view, black altogether compounded of blue with red and yellow, each deep and transparent, and duly subordinated [404] according to its powers, will give the most powerful and transparent blacks; although, like most other blacks, they dry badly in oil. Of course, as with all compound colours, it depends entirely on the pigments employed whether these mixed blacks are permanent or not: a compound black can very well pass through the stages of black to grey, gray, or dirty white, if each link in the chain of combination be not as strong as its fellows. ”

“ And this is the first of the two mention'd ways of Explicating Blackness. The other way is by Supposing the Texture of Black Bodies to be such, that either by their Yielding to the Beams of Light, or upon some other Account, they do as it were Dead the Beams of Light, and keep them from being Reflected in any Plenty, or with any Considerable Vigour of Motion, Outwards. ”

“ When the thickness of a film falls below a small fraction of the length of a wave of light, the color disappears and is replaced by an intense blackness. Professors Reinold and Rücker have recently made the remarkable observation that the whole of the black region, soon after its formation, is of uniform thickness, the passage from the black to the colored portions being exceedingly abrupt. By two independent methods they have determined the thickness of the black film to lie between seven and fourteen millionths of a millimetre ”

“ We have purposely said "black" in the sentence above, since it is believed that differently coloured bodies, when heated to equal temperatures, might not give the same relative intensities to the different parts of the spectrum, the variation being dependent on the colour of the heated body. A black body must always give the same visible spectrum when heated to the same temperature. The spectrum of sunlight (Fig. 1) is not continuous, as we find it crossed by an innumerable number of fine lines of varying breadth and blackness. ”

“ The so-called blackness of sun-spots is merely relative. They are really very bright. The most brilliant light which can be produced artificially looks like a black spot when projected on the sun’s disc.
According to Sir Robert Ball a pound of coal striking a body with a velocity of five miles a second would develop as much heat as it would produce by its combustion. A body falling into the sun from infinity would have a velocity of [Pg 7] 450 miles a second when it reached the sun’s surface. ”

“ In like manner, katabolism of a yellow-blue visual substance gives rise to a sensation we call yellow, while anabolism by shorter waves acting on the same substance, causes the sensation of blue. Again, katabolism of a white-black visual substance gives white, while anabolism, in the dark, gives rise to the sensation of blackness. Thus blackness is a sensation as well as whiteness, and the members of each pair are antagonistic as well as complementary. In the red end of the spectrum the rays cause katabolism of the red-green substance, while they have no effect on the yellow-blue substance. ”

“ It is a sad thing to think of, that when we put the candle out, and step into bed, we become blacker than the blackest negro that was ever emancipated. But without light there can be no colour, for there is no material, so to speak, from which to manufacture it. White light, as we have said before, is made up of red, blue, and yellow, and it is by the absorption of one or all of these that all tints are formed. ”

“ Several trustworthy observers have assured me that they have seen on the faces of negroes an appearance resembling a blush, under circumstances which would have excited one in us, though their skins were of an ebony-black tint. Some describe it as blushing brown, but most say that the blackness becomes more intense. An increased supply of blood in the skin seems in some manner to increase its blackness; thus certain exanthematous diseases cause the affected places in the negro to appear blacker, instead of, as with us, redder. ”

“ A deep hole looks black because practically no light is reflected up from its depths. When you "see" anything black, you really see the things around it and the parts of it that are not perfectly black. A pair of shoes, for instance, has particles of gray dust on them; or if they are very shiny they reflect part of the light that strikes them as a white high-light. But the really black part of your shoes would be invisible against an equally black background.
A black thing absorbs the light that strikes it and turns it to heat. Here is an experiment that will prove this to you:
Experiment 52. ”

“ One and the same Colour be plac'd, part in the Sun-beams, and part in the Shade, that part which is not Shin'd on will appear more of Kin to Blackness than the other, from which more Light Rebounds to the Eye; And Dark Colours seem the Blacker, the less Light they are Look'd upon in, and we think all Things Black in the Dark, when they send no Beams to make Impressions on our Organs of Sight, so that Shadows and Darkness are near of Kin, and Shaddow we know is but a Privation of Light ”

“ For indeed it seems, that as that which makes a Body White, is chiefly such a Disposition of its Parts, that it Reflects (I mean without much Interruption) more of the Light that falls on it, than Bodies of any other Colour do, so that which makes a Body Black is principally a Peculiar kind of Texture, chiefly of its Superficial Particle, whereby it does as it were Dead the Light [pg 118] that falls on it, so that very little is Reflected Outwards to the Eye. ”

“ To a society that had been taught to venerate whiteness for over three hundred years, this announcement was rather staggering. What was the world coming to, if the blacks were whiter than the whites? Many people in the upper class began to look askance at their very pale complexions. If it were true that extreme whiteness was evidence of the possession of Negro blood, of having once been a member of a pariah class, then surely it were well not to be so white!
Dr. Crookman's amazing brochure started the entire country to examining shades of skin color again. ”

“ In one series of experiments the chromatic effect of 46·8 parts of black, 29·1 of yellow, and 24·1 of blue was found to be the same as that of 66·6 of101 red and 33·4 of green; each set of discs has a dirty yellow tinge.
Now, in this experiment, black is not a colour; practically no light reaches the eye from a dead black. We have, however, to fill up the circumference of the top in some way which will not affect the impression on the retina arising from the mixture of the blue and yellow; this we can do by using the black disc. ”

“ From Gould's "Military Statistics," pp. 461-465, we learn as distinctly as we can learn any such facts, that the Negro is not so strong as the Caucasian; that the mean lifting strength of the Black is very markedly below that of the White at all ages above seventeen, with the exceptions of thirty-one to thirty-four, where the Black excess is nearly five pounds, and of forty-five to forty-nine, where the Black average is 328.7, the White only 325.7—a Black excess of three pounds. ”

“ Colourless transparency arises, according to Newton, from particles being too minute to reflect light; but if so, every black substance should be transparent. Newton himself so acutely felt this last difficulty as to suggest that true blackness is due to some internal refraction of the rays to and fro, and an ultimate stifling of them, which he did not attempt to explain further. Unless some other process comes into operation, neither refraction nor reflection, however often repeated, will destroy the energy of light. ”

“ From this observation it is evident, that the air is necessary to produce the blackness of negroes. Their children are born white, or rather red, like those of other men, but two or three days after they change to a tawny yellow, which gradually darkens till the seventh or eighth day, when they are completely black. All children two or three days after their birth have a kind of jaundice, which in white children is transitory, and leaves no impression upon the skin; but in negro children it gives a colour to the skin, and continues to grow more and more black. ”

“ The colours of these cells blend with that of the blood, thus producing, according to their number and depth of coloration, the brunette, black, yellow, or red complexion. The palm of the negro’s hand is whiter than the rest of his body, because there the horny epidermis is so thick that the black pigmentary matter cannot be seen through it. And the reason why every negro is born to blush unseen is because the pigmentary matter in his skin is so deep and abundant that it neutralises the colour of the blood. ”

“ Black Radiation.—The significance of the problem was first brought to light through the study of black radiation. By a black body is meant one whose distinguishing characteristic is that it emits and absorbs radiation of all frequencies, and black radiation is that which will exist in thermal equilibrium with such a body. The interest of this type of radiation lies in the fact, demonstrated by Kirchhoff, that its nature depends only upon the temperature of the black body with which it is in equilibrium, and on none of this body’s physical or chemical characteristics. ”

“ It is commonly presum'd that the Heat of the Climate wherein they live, is the reason, why so many Inhabitants of the Scorching Regions of Africa are Black; and there is this familiar Observation to Countenance this Conjecture, That we plainly see that Mowers, Reapers, and other Countrey-people, [pg 153] who spend the most part of the Hot Summer dayes expos'd to the Sun, have the skin of their Hands and Faces, which are the parts immediately Expos'd to the Sun and Air, made of a Darker Colour than before, and consequently tending to Blackness ”

“ After examining a considerable number of lungs, and finding that the division of the black matter into three kinds was not founded upon observation, and that the descriptions of them given by the best authorities were insufficient to enable us to distinguish them from one another, I begin to think, that in every instance in which black matter is found in the lungs, it ought to be considered morbid. ”

“ Now, if blackness were the complete absence of light, the question as far as it is concerned would be much simplified; but I shall endeavor to show that black is not a negative impression. All black pigments and materials reflect light, and many of them to an extent which makes the fact readily demonstrable. Compare under a bright illumination half a dozen black things to be found in any home—cloths, book-covers, etc.—and it will be seen on a more or less close examination that they are not identical in appearance. Color-makers have their blacks of various intensities and shades. ”

“ And if one look through a Prism upon a white Object encompassed with blackness or darkness, the reason of the Colours arising on the edges is much the same, as will appear to one that shall a little consider it. If a black Object be encompassed with a white one, the Colours which appear through the Prism are to be derived from the Light of the white one, spreading into the Regions of the black, and therefore they appear in a contrary order to that, when a white Object is surrounded with black. ”

“ The standard black here presented is the best possible pigmentary imitation of a very deep black hole, as for example, the projecting end of a large iron water or sewer pipe of considerable length buried in the ground, which is the blackest thing known. ”

“ It may be laid down as a rule that the black must be conspicuous. However small a point of black may be, it ought to catch the eye, otherwise the work is too heavy in the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of some colour—never black, nor approaching black, they should be evidently and always of a luminous nature, and the black should look strange among them; never occurring except in a black object, or in small points indicative of intense shade in the very centre of masses of shadow. Shadows of absolutely negative grey, however, may be beautifully used with white, or with gold ”

“ But, if viewed literally, on this point, a scientific chemical analysis of the blood of the black and white Races, has demonstrated the fact that they are not of one blood, because the blood of the Black man is essentially, and materially, different from the blood of the white man—it is thinner, darker, lower in temperature, different in its globules and in its coagulation ”