Note 226 — MINERALS. (continued 4)
Reading edition
PLATINA, the most ponderous of all the metals with which we are acquainted, is, when purified, about twenty times heavier than water. It is also one of the hardest and most difficult to be melted, is of white colour, but darker and not so bright as silver, and is found only in small blunted and angular grains or scales in the sands of some of the rivers in South America.