C 6,2 ]

bodies having a natural disposition, and appetite- for re-ceiving the principle which is wanting for their perfectionsbut in the first cafe there are no hopes of succeeding, forto root out an impure matter, with which a metal is radi-cally combined in its first formation, he admits not to bein the power of any other agent than the philosophers stoneitself. Of these notions it is sufficient to observe, thatthey are drawn from a supposition, which, cannot, be ad-mitted till. some facts shall be produced to make it proba-ble, viz. that all the base metals are no other than goldvitiated by some impure substance.

4- Vogel adopts an opinion, that platina is not a truemetal or semimetal os a peculiar kind, but a mixed mine-ral, the dross of the amalgamation-works- in which gold isseparated by quicksilver from a mixed ore. This opinionhe attributes to Marggraf; and in a periodical pamphletpublished at London, it is said that Marggraf supposes pla-tina to be. not only the effect of reiterated amalgamation,,but to be a part of the mercury itself fixed by some matterin the ore or metal it was amalgamated with.. All I canfind in Marggraf relative to this point is the followingpassage.. " We cannot say with certainty whether platinais an actual ore, or whether it is a stream-mineral whichhas been torn off and carried away by water from entireveins, or whether thirdly it may not possibly be a meremetallic recrement, from which the Spaniards, as beingthe owners of the works, have already perhaps extracted,the perfect metal.” I do not apprehend that the latterpart of this sentence will admit of the improbable inter-pretation that has been given of it. The author seems tome to have meant no more, than that the platina possibly,has not. come to us in its native form, but has been ground,with quicksilver to extract the gold intermixed with it; asuspicion which I had myself expressed also in the first paper,in theTransactions, and which the mercurial globules found,among the platina could not fail to produce.