with the Blew compose that Green, yet was I not satisfi’d
my self with my Conjecture, but the thing seem’d
odd to me, as well as to divers curious persons to
whom it was shown. And I lately had a Broad piece
of Glass, which being look’d on against the Light
seem’d clear enough, and held from the Light
appear’d very lightly discolour’d, and
yet it was a piece knock’d off from a great
lump of Glass, to which if we rejoyn’d it, where
it had been broken off, the whole Mass was as green
as Grass. And I have several times us’d
Bottles and stopples that were both made (as those,
I had them from assur’d me) of the very same
Metall, and yet whilst the bottle appear’d but
inclining towards a Green, the Stopple (by reason
of its great thickness) was of so deep a Colour that
you would hardly believe they could possibly be made
of the same materials. But to satisfie some Ingenious
Men, on another occasion, I provided my self of a
flat Glass (which I yet have by me,) with which if
I look against the Light with the Broad side obverted
to the Eye, it appeares like a good ordinary window
Glass; but if I turn the Edge of it to my Eye, and
place my Eye in a convenient posture in reference
to the Light, it may contend for deepness of Colour
with an Emerald. And this Greeness puts me in
mind of a certain thickish, but not consistent Pigment
I have sometimes made, and can show you when you please,
which being dropp’d on a piece of White Paper
appears, where any quantity of it is fallen, of a
somewhat Crimson Colour, but being with ones finger
spread thinly on the Paper does presently exhibit a
fair Green, which seems to proceed only from its disclosing
its Colour upon the Extenuation of its Depth into
Superficies, if the change be not somewhat help’d
by the Colours degenerating upon one or other of the
Accounts formerly mention’d. Let me add,
that having made divers Tryals with that Blew substance,
which in Painters shops is call’d Litmase,
we have sometimes taken Pleasure to observe, that
being dissolv’d in a due proportion of fair
Water, the Solution either oppos’d to the Light,
or dropp’d upon White paper, did appear of a
deep Colour betwixt Crimson and Purple; and yet that
being spread very thin on the Paper and suffer’d
to dry on there, the Paper was wont to appear Stain’d
of a Fine Blew. And to satisfie my selfe, that
the diversity came not from the Paper, which one might
suspect capable of inbibing the Liquor, and altering
the Colour, I made the Tryal upon a flat piece of
purely White Glass’d Earth, (which I sometimes
make use of about Experiments of Colours) with an Event
not unlike the former.


