Dictionarium polygraphicum. White.

Dictionarium Polygraphicum:
Or, The Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested.
Vol II.
London: Printed for C. Hitch and C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, and S. Austen in St. Paul's Church Yard. MDCCXXXV.
1735
WHITE is one of the colours of natural bodies: but it is not so properly said to be of any colour, as a composition of all colours.

It is demonstrated by sir Isaac Newton, that those bodies only appear white, which reflect all the kinds of colour'd rays alike.

Hevelius affirms it as a certain truth, that in the northern countries, animals, as hares, foxes, bears, &c. become white in the wi ter time, and in the summer resume their natural colours.

Black bodies are found to take heat sooner than white ones, by reason that black ones absorb or imbibe rays of all kinds and colours, and white reflect all.

Thus black paper is sooner put into a flame by a burning-glass than white; and black cloths hung up by the dyers dry sooner than white ones.