After I had made these reflections, I could not help thinking that an analysis of minerals, which should treat of saline and metallic substances, without taking any notice of the manner in which their matrices must be analysed, in order to extract them, would be no less defective than a treatise of the analysis of vegetables, in which Oils, essential Salts, fixed and volatile Alkalis, should be amply treated of, without saying one word of the manner of analysing the plants from which these several substances are obtained. I therefore thought myself indispensably obliged to describe the manner of decomposing every ore or mineral, before I attempted to treat of the saline or metallic substance which it yields. For example: as the Vitriolic Acid, with the consideration of which I begin my Mineral Analysis, is originally contained in Vitriol, Sulphur, and Alum; and as these substances again derive their origin from the sulphureous and ferruginous Pyrites, the first operations I describe under this head are the processes for decomposing the Pyrites in order to extract its Vitriol, Sulphur, and Alum. I then proceed to the particular analysis of each of these substances, with a view to extract their Vitriolic Acid; and afterwards deliver, in their order, the other operations usually performed on this Acid. Thus it appears, that this saline substance occasions my describing the analyses of the Pyrites, Vitriol, Sulphur, and Alum. The whole of the Treatise on Minerals proceeds on the same plan. The operations by which we decompose ores and minerals are of two sorts: those employed in working by the great, and those for trying in small the yield of any ore. These two manners of operating are sometimes a little different; yet in the main they are the same, because they are founded on the same principles, and produce the same effects. As my chief design was to describe the operations that may be conveniently performed in a laboratory, I have preferred the processes for small assays: especially as they are usually performed with more care and accuracy than the operations in great works: and here I must acknowledge, that I am obliged to M. Cramer's _Docimasia_, or Art of Assaying, for all the operations of this kind in my analysis of minerals. As M. Hellot's work on that subject did not appear till after I had finished this, M. Cramer's _Docimasia_, in which sound Theory is joined with accurate practice, was the best book of the kind I could at that time consult. I therefore preferred it to all others; and as I have not quoted it in my analysis of minerals, because the quotations would have been too frequent, let what I say here serve for a general quotation. I have been careful to name, as often as occasion required, the other authors whose processes I have borrowed: it is a tribute justly due to those who have communicated their discoveries to the public.