Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 001.djvu/74

 Treatise of the usefulness of great Optick-Glasses, where he also intends to deliver several Experiments, by him made, 1. Touching the quantity of Light, which a Body, that is 10. 15 and 20 times, &c. remoter than Saturn, would yet receive from the Sun. 2. Touching the quantity of Light, by which the Earth is illuminated even in the Eclipses of the Sun, in proportion of their bigness. 3. Touching the quantity of Light, which is necessary to burn Bodies: he having found, that not abating the Light, which is reflected by the Surfaces of the Glass (whereof he confesseth, he doth not yet exactly know the quantity) there would be necessary about 50 times as much Light, as we have here, for the burning of Black Bodies; and neer 9 times more for the burning of White Bodies, than for the burning of Black ones; and so observing the immediate proportions between these two, for burning Bodies of other Colors. Whence (he tells us) he hath drawn some consequences, touching the distance, at which we may hope, to burn Bodies here, by the means of great Glasses and great Looking-glasses. So that (saith he) we must yet be seven times neerer the Sun, than we are, to be in danger of being burned by it. Where he mentions, that having given Instructions to certain persons, gon to travel in Hot Countries, he hath among other particulars recommended to them, to try by means of great Burning-glasses, with how much less Aperture they will burn there, than here, to know from thence, whether there be more Light there than here; and how much; since this perhaps may be the only means of trying it, supposing, the same matters be used: although the difference of the Air already heated both in hot Countries, and in the Planets, that are neerer than we may alter, if not the quantity of Light, at least that of the Heat found there.

In the above-mentioned French Tract there is also contained M. Auzout's Opinion of what he had found New in the Treatise of Signor Campani, which was spoken of in the first Papers of these Transactions, concerning both the Effect of the Telescopes, contrived after a peculiar way by the said Campani at Rome, and Rh