PART I.

dilated it self downwards, until sometimes it hath overspread the whole Bubble. In the mean while at the top, which was of a darker blue than the bottom, and appear'd also full of many round blue Spots, something darker than the rest, there would emerge one or more very black Spots, and within those, other Spots of an intenser blackness, which I mention'd in the former Observation; and these continually dilated themselves until the Bubble broke.

If the Water was not very tenacious, the black Spots would break forth in the white, without any sensible intervention of the blue. And sometimes they would break forth within the precedent yellow, or red, or perhaps within the blue of the second order, before the intermediate Colours had time to display themselves.

By this description you may perceive how great an affinity these Colours have with those of Air described in the fourth Observation, although set down in a contrary order, by reason that they begin to appear when the Bubble is thickest, and are most conveniently reckon'd from the lowest and thickest part of the Bubble upwards.

Obs. 19. Viewing in several oblique Positions of my Eye the Rings of Colours emerging on the top of the Bubble, I found that they were sensibly dilated by increasing the obliquity, but yet not so much by far as those made by thinn'd Air in the seventh Observation. For there they were dilated so much as, when view'd most obliquely, to arrive at a part of the Plate more than twelve times thicker than that where they appear'd when viewed perpendicularly; whereas in this case the thickness of the Water, at which they arrived when viewed most obliquely, was to that thickness which exhibited them by perpendicular Rays, something less than as 8 to 5. By the best of my Observations it was between 15 and 15-1/2 to 10; an increase about 24 times less than in the other case.

Sometimes the Bubble would become of an uniform thickness all over, except at the top of it near the black Spot, as I knew, because it would exhibit the same appearance of Colours in all Positions of the Eye. And then the Colours which were seen at its apparent circumference by the obliquest Rays, would be different from those that were seen in other places, by Rays less oblique to it. And divers Spectators might see the same part of it of differing Colours, by viewing it at very differing Obliquities. Now observing how much the Colours at the same places of the Bubble, or at divers places of equal thickness, were varied by the several Obliquities of the Rays; by the assistance of the 4th, 14th, 16th and 18th Observations, as they are hereafter explain'd, I collect the thickness of the Water requisite to exhibit any one and the same Colour, at several Obliquities, to be very nearly in the Proportion expressed in this Table.

In the two first Columns are express'd the Obliquities of the Rays to the Superficies of the Water, that is, their Angles of Incidence and Refraction. Where I suppose, that the Sines which measure them are in round