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he examined with a small hand-glass he himself had made. In looking at the ray, quite accidentally, he found it could be deflected and sent off at will in various directions. When thrown on the wall, instead of being simply white light it had seven distinct colors beginning with violet and running down to red. So white light was not a single element: it was made up of various rays which had to be united in order to give us sunlight. Eureka! He had found the secret of the rainbow--the sun's rays broken up and separated by the refracting agency of clouds! Well does Darwin declare that the separation of sunlight into its component parts, and the invention of the spectrum, have marked an advance in man's achievement such as the world had not seen since the time of wonder-working Archimedes. * * * * * The Cambridge University was closed until October, year of Sixteen Hundred Sixty-seven. Most of the intervening time Newton spent at the home of his mother, but from accounts of his we can see that the College people kept their eagle-eye upon him, for they sent remittances to him regularly for "commons." When he returned to Cambridge he was assigned to the "spiritual chamber," which was a room next to the chapel, that had formerly been reserved as a guest-room for visiting dignitaries. In March, Sixteen Hundred Sixty-eight, he was given the degree of Master of Arts. His studies now were of a very varied kind. He was required to give one lecture a week on any subject of his own choosing. Needless to say his themes were all mathematical or scientific. Just what they were can best be inferred by consulting his cashbook, since the lectures themselves were not written out and all memoranda concerning them have disappeared. This account-book shows that his expenditures were for a Gunter's Book (he who invented the Gunter's Chain), a magnet and a compass, glue, bulbs, putty, antimony, vinegar, white lead, salts of tartar, and lenses. And in addition there are a few interesting items such as one sees in the Diary of George Washington: "Lost at cards, five shillings." "Treating at tavern, ten shillings." "Binding my Bible, three shillings." "Spent on my cousin, one pound, two." "Expenses for wetting my degree, sixteen shillings." The last item shows that times have changed but little: this scientist and philosopher par excellence had to moisten his diploma at the tavern for the benefit o
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