Green
Green names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Green one of the seven colors of the spectrum
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
one of the seven colors of the spectrum. A yellow light can be resolved into a red and a green or may be produced by blending a red light and a yellow; but a green light cannot be produced by blending other lights, nor can it be resolved into two lights. It is called, therefore, one of the primary colors of the spectrum. A green pigment--coloring material--may be produced usually by mixing a yellow and a blue pigment; but it is an error to say that green is a mixture of these--blue and yellow. Green, then, occupies a central position in the spectrum. As compared with other colors, the waves are of average length. For this reason, no doubt, green is the easiest color on the eye. Fortunately, it is the color of nature. The green of foliage is due to the action of light on the chlorophyll in the leaf cells. In art, green forms a grateful background, the best for a mixture of colors. In tradition, green is the color of repentance. Green is the sacred color of Islam. No matter what color may be worked into the figures and ornamentation, the background of the prayer-rug is green. Some of the more noted greens are aldehyde green and aniline green, derived from coal tar ; verdigris, obtained by exposing copper to the action of vinegar; emerald green; and paris green . Lincoln green was so called from the excellent success of the wool dyers of Lincoln, England. It was a favorite color with foresters and green shaw men. See Color
Green JOHN RICHARD, an English historian
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN RICHARD, an English historian; born in Oxford, England, in December, 1837. He was educated at Magdalen College School and at Jesus College, Oxford. He took orders, and was in succession curate and vicar of two East End London parishes. In 1868 he became librarian at Lambeth, and next year he was struck down with consumption, a disease which made any kind of active work thereafter impossible. He published his "Short History of the English People" in 1874. It was the first complete history of England from the social side. The work attained an unparalleled success, as many as 150,000 copies having been sold within 15 years. He wrote also a larger and independent edition of the work as "A History of the "Stray Studies from England and Italy" (1876); "Short Geography of the British Islands" (1879), written in conjunction with his wife; "Making of England" (1882); "The Conquest of England" (1883). In 1879 he received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Edinburgh. He died in Mentone, France, March 7, 1883.
Green THOMAS HILL, an English philosopher
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THOMAS HILL, an English philosopher; born in Birkin, Yorkshire, England, April 7, 1836. He was educated at Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford, taking there in 1859 a first-class in litteræ humaniores, later a third in law and modern history, and in November, 1860, being elected to a fellowship in his college, to which he was re-elected in 1872, becoming also its first lay tutor in 1866. He married a sister of John Addington Symonds in 1871, and was appointed in 1877 to be Whyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy. He wrote "Prolegomena to Ethics"; "Works" (3 vols. 1885-1888); etc. He died March 26, 1882, leaving £1,000 to the university for a prize essay in the department of moral philosophy, £1,000 to found a scholarship at the Oxford High School for boys, and £3,500 to Balliol College for the promotion of higher education in large towns. He died in 1882.
Green ANNA KATHARINE, the maiden name and pseudonym of 'MRS
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ANNA KATHARINE, the maiden name and pseudonym of 'MRS. ROHLFS, an American author; born in Brooklyn, N. Y., Nov. 11, 1846. She graduated at Ripley (female) College, Poultney, Vt., 1867. Her novels are detective stories, and enjoy great popularity. "The Leavenworth Case" (1878) is one of her best. Included in her publications are: "Risifi's Daughter" (1866), a dramatic poem; "The Sword of Damocles"; "A Strange Disappearance"; "Hand and Ring"; "The Mill Mystery"; "That Affair Next Door"; "Lost Man's Lane" (1898); "Agatha Webb" (1899); "The Circular Study" (1900); "Dark Hollow" (1914); "Mystery of the Hasty Arrow" (1917), etc.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account called green "one of the primary colors of the spectrum" because a green light "cannot be produced by blending other lights" — a claim modern colour science reframes rather than repeats. Green is indeed a primary, but for a reason Aiton does not give: the human retina carries three classes of cone cell, and the medium-wavelength cone is the reason red, green and blue serve as the additive primaries of every television and phone screen; the cone pigments themselves were measured directly only in the second half of the 20th century. Aiton's note that leaf green comes from "the action of light on the chlorophyll in the leaf cells" was sound, but chlorophyll's structure was worked out by Richard Willstätter and Hans Fischer in the following decades and the molecule was synthesised in 1960. Of the greens he lists as "noted," Paris green — a copper arsenite once sprayed on crops — has since been withdrawn as an arsenical poison, and the aniline dyes from coal tar have largely given way to petrochemical ones. Among the people: Anna Katharine Green, still living when Collier's wrote in 1921, died in 1935 and is now routinely credited as a founder of the American detective novel, while T. H. Green's idealism fell out of fashion but his idea of positive freedom shaped 20th-century liberal thought.
Written for this edition, 2026.