COLOUR 107 



o as they had been of Roger Bacon. The sleep 

 of agea of ignorance was so rudely broken by the 

 magical little tube be put together, that, as they robbed 



eyes and saw the old worl.J of thought .ii** 







Galileo's first telescope magnified three diameters or 

 ist magnified t! e diameters. 



He could not go farther with the glass lenses then in 

 use. At thirty - meters the colours, developed 



in the passage of rays of li^ht thr.m,'!i glass, or by 

 what is called refraction, put an effectual stop to pro- 

 gress. Newton began where Galileo stopped 1I< 

 analysed a beam of sunlight into its component colours 

 as they are seen in the rainbow, or through a glass 



i. He came to the conclusion 



could not be produced without colour." He was mis- 

 taken, and the mistake of a man so eminent led the 

 whole world astray. Acting on this belief, he argued 

 that "no improvement could be expected from the 

 refracting telescope," that is, from an instrument \\ith 

 a glass or lens at the object end of the tube to 

 an eye that collected and focused the rays of light 

 Colour, though thus barring the march of advui 



e, really indicated the path of progress. But 

 nearly two centuries elapsed before the lost road was 

 regained, and the prism of glass became a more power- 



K tor in n veiling the wonders of distant worlds 

 than the best telescopes. However, progress was not 

 wholly barred Colours were not developed by the 

 reflection of light from a polished surface. If, then, a 



y polished mirror were placed in the bottom of a 



