( 3079 )
And I saw by the variation of those places, that the light, tending to that end of the Image, towards which the refraction of the first Prisme was made, did in the second Prisme suffer a Refraction considerably greater then the light tending to the other end. And so the true cause of the length of that Image was detected to be no other, then that Light consists of Rays differently refrangible, which, without any respect to a difference in their incidence, were, according to their degrees of refrangibility, transmitted towards divers parts of the wall.
When I understood this, I left off my aforesaid Glass works; for I saw, that the perfection of Telescopes was hitherto limited, not so much for want of glasses truly figured according to the prescriptions of Optick Authors, (which all men have hitherto imagined,) as because that Light it self is a Heterogeneous mixture of differently refrangible Rays. So that, were a glass so exactly figured, as to collect any one sort of rays into one point, it could not collect those also into the same point, which having the same incidence upon the same Medium are apt to suffer a different refraction. Nay, I wondered, that seeing the difference of refrangibility was so great, as I found it, Telescopes should arrive to that perfection they are now at. For, measuring the refractions in one of my Prismes, I found, that supposing the common sine of Incidence upon one of its planes was 44 parts, the sine of refraction of the utmost Rays on the red end of the Colours, made out of the glass into the Air, would be 68 parts, and the sine of refraction of the utmost rays on the other end, 69 parts: So that the difference is about a 24th or 25th part of the whole refraction. And consequently, the object-glass of any Telescope cannot collect all the rays, which come from one point of an object, so as to make them convene at its focus in less room then in a circular space, whose diameter is the 50th part of the Diameter of its Aperture; which is an irregularity, some hundreds of times greater, then a circularly figured Lens, of so small a section as the Object-glasses of long Telescopes are, would cause by the unfitness of its figure, were Light uniform.
This made me take Reflections into consideration, and finding them regular, so that the Angle of Reflection of all sorts of Rays was equal to their Angle of Incidence; I understood, that by their mediation Optick instruments might be brought to any degree of perfection imaginable, provided a Reflecting substance could be
