~Cyanide Method.~--Weigh up 20 grams of the ore and dry it on a scoop over the Bunsen flame. When dry, weigh, and calculate the percentage of water from the loss in weight. Transfer the dried ore to an evaporating dish, and cover with 30 c.c. of hydrochloric acid; boil for 10 or 12 minutes, and then add 5 c.c. of nitric acid and boil again. Dilute with water, and filter. Transfer the filter and its contents to an E Battersea crucible, and calcine it for a few minutes. Cool, and weigh the residue. The loss equals the oxides soluble in acid. Transfer the residue to the crucible and mix it with its own weight of cyanide of potassium; add a similar amount of "cyanide" as a cover. Place in the furnace, and when the charge has attained the temperature of the furnace (in from 3 to 6 minutes), remove it at once; tap the pot _vigorously_ several times, and then pour its contents quietly into a mould. Dissolve the slag in water, clean, dry, and weigh the button of tin. WET METHODS. ~Detection.~--Tin ore is detected by its insolubility in acids, high specific gravity, and characteristic appearance in water. The powder is separated from the lighter gangue by washing. It is fused in a Berlin crucible with five times its weight of potassic cyanide at a moderately high temperature in a muffle, or over the blowpipe. The slag is washed off with water, and the metallic buttons or residue treated with hydrochloric acid (not aqua regia), for some time. One portion of the solution strikes a purple colour with chloride of gold, another portion gives a white or grey precipitate or cloudiness with mercuric chloride. These reactions are characteristic of tin as stannous chloride. Metallic tin treated with nitric acid becomes converted into a white insoluble powder (metastannic acid). Aqua regia dissolves tin readily, forming stannic chloride, and in this solution the metal is detected by precipitation with sulphuretted hydrogen, which gives a yellow precipitate. Tin in solution as stannic or stannous chloride is precipitated as metal by means of zinc.