truly figur'd, according to the prescriptions of Optick Authors (which all Men have hitherto imagin'd), as because that Light it self is a Heterogeneous mixture of differently refrangible Rays. So that, were a Glass so exactly figur'd, so 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 wonder'd, 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 Prisms, I found, that, supposing the common Sine of Incidence upon one of its plains, was forty four 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 sixty eight parts, and the Sine of Refraction of the utmost Rays on the other end, sixty nine parts; so that the difference is about a twenty fourth or twenty fifth 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 than in a Circular space, whose Diameter is the fiftieth part of the Diameter of its Aperture; which is an irregularity, some hundred of times greater, than a circularly figur'd 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 found, which would polish as finely as Glass, and reflect