[ 5*7 1

Dealing and boiling, proved somewhat tougher than thepreceding, and of a better colour.

6. Twenty-three carats of gold were melted with oneof platina, which i#nearly half the proportion that stan-dard gold contains of alloy. The compound worked ex-tremely well; but was distinguishable from fine or standardgold by some degree of the ill colour of the two forego-ing, which it retained after repeated forgings, fusions andboilings.

7. T wenty-three carats and one fourth of gold, andthree fourths of a carat of platina, or thirty-one parts ofthe former to one of the latter, formed an equal mixture,very malleable, ductile like the three foregoing while hotas well as cold, but not altogether free from their parti-cular ill colour.

8. A mixture of twenty-three carats and a half of goldwith half a carat, or one forty-feventh its weight of pla-tina, was very soft and flexible, of a good colour, withoutany thing of the disagreeable cast by which all the forego-ing were readily distinguishable by the eye from any kindof alloyed gold I have seen.

9. A mixture of twenty-three carats and three fourths ofgold with one fourth of a carat, or one ninety-sifth itsweight of platina, could not be distinguished, by the eyeor the hammer, from the fine gold itself.

to. In all the above processes, even where the quantityof platina was very small, the fusion was performed witha vehement fire, that the platina might be the more per-fectly dissoWed, and equally diffused through the gold.This appeared to be a very necessary precaution. Havingonce melted gold with one fourth its weight of platina,the button appeared not. much paler than standard goldwith silver alloy, but on a second fusion it lost its yellow-ness, and looked not much unlike bell metaL The gold

colour.