228 Elements of Mineralogy. 



reft. Hence there are 4 perfect metals, 4 



imperfect, 8 intire, and 9 femi-metals. 



3. Metallic fubftances in their natural ftate 

 are found either united to their full comple- 

 ment of phlogifton, and confequently pof- 

 fefling their refpeclive and peculiar proper- 

 ties, and thence called native) or more or lefs 

 deprived of their phlogifton, and the pro- 

 perties refulting from their union with it, 

 moft commonly, if not always, by combi- 

 nation with fome other fubftance, and then 

 they are faid to be mineralized, becaufe this is 

 their moft ufual ftate in the mineral king- 

 dom, and the fubftance fo combined with 

 them is called a miner alizer ; the whole is 

 called an ore ; fo alfo are earths and ftones, 

 in which metallic fubftances are contained in 

 a notable proportion. 



4. When the mineralizer is of a faline 

 nature, and renders 'the metallic fubftance 

 with which it is combined foluble in lefs than 

 20 times its weight of water, the compound 

 is generally ranged among filts : thus the 

 vitriols of iron, copper and zinc are rather 

 clafled with falts than with ores, 



5. The commoneft mineralizers are ful- 

 phur, arfenic, and fixed air : the leaft com- 

 mon are the vitriolic and marine acids ; the 



phofphoric 



