Place the test thus loaded under the further end of the muffle in a cupelling furnace. Light your fire, and increase it by degrees. If you look through one of the apertures in the door of the furnace you will perceive the ore, covered with calcined Lead, swim upon the melted Lead. Presently afterwards it will grow soft, melt, and be thrown towards the sides of the vessel, the surface of the Lead appearing in the midst thereof bright and shining like a luminous disc: the Lead will then begin to boil, and emit fumes. As soon as this happens, the fire must be a little checked, so that the ebullition of the Lead may almost entirely cease, for about a quarter of an hour. After this it must be excited to the degree it was at before, so that the Lead may begin again to boil and smoke. Its shining surface will gradually lessen, and be covered with _scoriæ_. Stir the whole with an iron hook, and draw in towards the middle what you observe towards the sides of the vessel; to the end that, if any part of the ore should still remain undissolved by the Lead, it may be mixed therewith. When you perceive that the matter is in perfect fusion, that the greatest part of what sticks to the iron hook, when you dip it in the melted matter, separates from it again, and drops back into the vessel; and that the extremity of this instrument, when grown cold, appears varnished over with a thin, smooth, shining crust; you may look on these as marks that the business is done, and the more uniform and evenly the colour of the crust is, the more perfect may you judge the scorification to be. Matters being brought to this pass, take the test with a pair of tongs from under the muffle, and pour its whole contents into an iron cone, first heated and greased with tallow. This whole operation lasts about three quarters of an hour. When all is cold, the blow of a hammer will part the Regulus from the scoria; and as it is not possible, how perfect soever the scorification be, to avoid leaving a little Lead containing Silver in the scoria, it is proper to pulverize this scoria, and separate therefrom whatever extends under the hammer, in order to add it to the Regulus. _OBSERVATIONS._ Silver, as well as Gold, is often found quite pure, and under its metalline form, in the bowels of the earth; and in that case it may be separated from the stones or sand in which it is lodged by simple washing, or by Amalgamation with Mercury, in the same manner as before directed for Gold. But it also happens frequently, that Silver is combined in the ore with other metallic substances and minerals, which will not admit of this process, but force us to employ other methods of separating it from them.