282 STUDIES OF KATURE. 



by making the red ray the firft in the feries, and 

 the violet ray the laft. The order of colours in 

 the prifm, therefore, is only a triangular decompo- 

 fition of a ray of cylindrical light, the two extremes 

 of which, red and violet, participate the one of 

 the other, without terminating it ; fo that the 

 principle of colours, which is the white ray and 

 it's progreffive decompofition, is no longer mani- 

 fefted in it. I am very much difpofed to believe, 

 that it is even poflible to cut a cryftal with fuch a 

 number of angles, as would give to the refradions 

 of the folar ray an order entirely different, and 

 would multiply the pretended primitive colours 

 far beyond the number of feven. The authority 

 of fuch a polyedron would become altogether as 

 refpeftable as that of the prifm, if the Algebraifts 

 were to apply to it a few calculations, fomewhat 

 obfcure, with a feafoning of the ratiocination of 

 the corpufcular philofophy, as they have done 

 with regard to the effeds of the triangular inftru- 

 ment. 



We fhall employ a method, not quite fo learn- 

 ed, to convey an idea of the generation of colours, 

 and of the decompofition of the folar ray. Inftead of 

 examining them in a prifm of glafs, we fhall con- 

 fider them in the Heavens, and there we fhall be- 

 hold the five primordial colours unfold themfelves 

 in the order which we have indicated. 



In 



