As a naturalist, Harris wished to understand the relationships between the colours, and how they are coded, and his book attempted to explain the principles, “materially, or by the painters art”, by which further colours can be produced from red, yellow and blue. Harris showed what is now known as the subtractive mixing of colours, with his most important observation showing that black will be formed through the superimposition of the three basic colours. Harris also discovered petrified wood.
Moses Harris
