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Certain minerals can readily be told apart just by weighing them in the hand. The natural minerals with the highest specific gravity are native gold and platinum, which are nearly twenty times as dense as water. The specific gravity of most ’stony’ minerals, which include all the silicates, ranges from 2-5 to 3-5. The metallic ores are somewhat heavier, and many sulphides and oxides of the heavy metals have a specific gravity ranging from 4 to 8. The Veinstones’ or gangue minerals which form a large part of most ore veins, such as calcite, ankerite and dolomite, have a density around 3, and the similar but distinctly heavier mineral barytes has a density of 4-5.