White gypsum, improperly called alabaster, is a matter which calcines like all other plasters by a more moderate heat than that which is necessary for the calcination of calcareous matters, and it follows the order of density in the progress of heat which it receives or loses, for although much more dense than chalk, and a little more so than white calcareous stone, it heats and cools more readily than either of those matters. This demonstrates that the more or less easy calcination and fusion produces the same effects relatively to the progress of heat. Gypsous matters do not require so much fire to calcine as calcareous, and it is for this reason that, although more dense, they heat and cool much quicker. Thus it may be concluded, that, in general, the _progress of heat in all Mineral Substances is always nearly in a ratio of their greater or less facility to calcine, or melt_: but that when their calcination, or their fusion, are _equally difficult_, and _that they require a degree of extreme heat_, then the _progress of heat is made according to the order of their density_. I have deposited in the Royal Cabinet the globes of gold, silver, and of all the other metallic and mineral substances which served for the preceding experiments, that if the truth of their results, and the general consequences which I have deduced, be doubted, there may be an opportunity of rendering them more authentic. OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURE OF PLATINA. We have already seen, that of all the Mineral substances which I subjected to trial it was not the most dense, but the least fusible, which required the longest time to receive and lose heat. Iron and emery, which are the most difficult matters to fuse, are, at the same time, those that heat and cool the slowest. There is nothing except platina that is accessible to heat, which retains it longer than iron. This mineral, (which has not long been publicly mentioned) appears, however, to be more difficult to fuse; the fire of the best furnaces is not fierce enough to produce that effect, nor even to agglutinate the small grains, which are all angular, hard, and similar in form to the thick scale of iron, but of a yellowish colour; and although we can fuse them without any addition, and reduce them into a mass by a mirror, platina seems to require more heat than the ore and scales of iron which we easily fuse in our forge furnaces. In other respects, the density of platina being much greater than that of iron, the two quantities of density and non-fusibility unite here to render this matter the least accessible to the progress of heat. I presume, therefore, that platina would have been at the head of my table if I had put it to the experiment; but I was not able to procure a globe of it of an inch diameter, it being only found in grains[C]; and that which is in the mass is not pure, it being necessary, in order to fuse it, to mix it with other matters, which alter its nature. The Comte de