A NEW 
ELUCIDATION OF COLOURS, 
X. HERE may seem a want of order, in commencing this work with 
showing rather a finished series than the beginning of one. I have, 
however, in this instance thought it necessary to give general ideas, 
and afterwards to begin in as simple a manner as I could ; and, by 
descending to certain particulars, endeavour to lead to a natural re- 
sult. I therefore show them even the first and the last series of 
prismatic tints, viz. light colours and dark ones, as they are in their 
nature of much consequence, having been very little if at all noticed 
in natural order, especially the browns and other ternaries. Thus 
we have, as it were, white as the first beginning of colours, and 
brown to black the termination of them to our senses. We shall 
find in the sequel that these include all colours, and that a certain 
position or arrangement will make them evident, with the most 
beautiful order and unerring regularity. I am pleased to find these 
first examples in minerals, whose agency is no less conspicuous in 
this department, than of the first necessity in most others, showing 
us much of the nature of light and colours, from the most evanes- 
cent* to the more solid or material. They help us much to judge 
of their permanency, and seem the best vehicles to trace them in, 
and from their first source ; for we may produce them at pleasure, 
* Changeable, in many substances, according to the course of the light they are 
viewed by. 
