Measurements of Nusselt numbers in shallow, air-filled porous beds bounded by horizontal isothermal surfaces are reported. The Rayleigh number range covered was from 5 to 150 and the number of layers of spheres investigated was from 1 to 5. Critical Rayleigh numbers were found to be close to 4 pi **2 except in the case of the one-layer bed. The ratio of particle diameter to bed height had a strong influence on the Nusselt number.