Short; for after other things not needfull to be here Transcribed:  Iter, says he, Diurnum duo scilicet montana milliaria (quae 12 Italica sunt) consiciunt.  Nocte vero sub splendissima luna, duplatum iter consumunt aut triplatum.  Neque id incommode fit, cum nivium reverberatione lunaris splendoris sublimes & declives campos illustret, ac etiam montium praecipitia ac noxias feras a lorge prospiciant evitandas.  Which Testimony I the less Scruple to allege, because that it agrees very well with what has been Affirm’d to me by a Physician of Mosco, whom the Notion I have been Treating of concerning Whiteness invited me to ask whether he could not See much farther when he Travell’d by Night in Russia than he could do in England, or elsewhere, when there was no Snow upon the Ground; For this Ingenious Person inform’d me, that he could See Things at a farr greater Distance, and with more Clearness, when he Travell’d by Night on the Russian Snow, though without the Assistance of Moon-shine, than we in these Parts would easily be perswaded.  Though it seems not unlikely to me, that the Intenseness of the Cold may contribute something to the considerableness of the Effect, by much Clearing the Air of Darkish Steams, which in these more Temperate Climates are wont to Thicken it in Snowy weather:  For having purposely inquir’d of this Doctor, and consulted that Ingenious Navigator Captain James’s Voyage hereafter to be further mention’d, I find both their Relations agree in this, that in Dark Frosty Nights they could Discover more Stars, and See the rest Clearer than we in England are wont to do.

  [8] Gent.  Septen.  Histor. lib. 4 cap. 13.

6.  I know indeed that divers Learned Men think, that Snow so strongly Affects our Eye, not by a Borrow’d, but a Native Light; But I venture to give it as a Proof, that White Bodies reflect more Light than Others, because having once purposely plac’d a parcel of Snow in a Room carefully Darkned, that no Celestial Light might come to fall upon it; neither I, nor an ingenous Person, (Skill’d in Opticks) whom I desir’d for a Witness, could find, that it had any other Light than what it receiv’d.  And however, ’tis usual among those that Travel in Dark Nights, that the Guides wear something of White to be Discern’d by, there being scarce any Night so Dark, but that in the Free Air there remains some Light, though Broken and Debilitated perhaps by a thousand Reflections from the Opacous Corpuscles that Swim in the Air, and lend it to one another before it comes to arrive at the Eye.