He found that the light which comes from the sun is not a simple thing, but is composed of colors, and these colors were separated by the glass prism. In the same way the colors of sunlight are separated by raindrops to form a rainbow. The colors may be again mingled together by passing them through a second prism. They will then form a white light. Suppose that the light of the sun were not composed of different colors, that all parts of white light were alike, then there would be no colors in nature. All the trees and flowers would have a dull, leaden hue, and the human countenance would have the appearance of a pencil-sketch or a photographic picture. The rainbow itself would dwindle into a narrow arch of white light; the sun would shine through a gray sky, and the beauty of the setting sun would be replaced by the gray of twilight (Fig. 11). [Illustration: FIG. 11--NEWTON'S EXPERIMENT WITH THE PRISM Sunlight separated into the colors of the rainbow. The seven colors are: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.] One of Newton's inventions was a reflecting telescope--that is, a telescope in which a curved mirror was used in place of a lens. He made such a telescope only six inches long, which would magnify forty times. Newton was a member of the Convention Parliament, which declared James II. to be no longer King of England and tendered the crown to William and Mary. He was made a knight by Queen Anne in 1705. His knowledge of chemistry was used in the service of his country when he was Master of the Mint. It was his duty to superintend the recoining of the money of England, which had been debased by dishonest officials at the mint. He did his work without fear or favor. Once a bribe of £6000 ($30,000) was offered him. He refused it, whereupon the agent who made the offer said to him that it came from a great duchess. Newton replied: "Tell the lady that if she were here herself, and had made me this offer, I would have desired her to go out of my house; and so I desire you, or you shall be turned out." Although Newton's discoveries in the world of thought were among the greatest ever made by man, he regarded them as insignificant compared with the truth yet undiscovered. He said of himself: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Chapter III THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY James Watt and the Steam-Engine