This empirical paper addresses the phenomena of the contact melting of PCM in horizontal capsules of circular and rectangular cross sections with various aspect ratio. The melting-rate tends to increase as the Stefan number increases. The case of rectangular tube displays larger melting-rate than that of circular tube, and the melting-rate increases as the aspect ratio decreasws for rectangular tubes. In case of circular tube, the effect of natural convection on the melting-rate is 6.1%, 8.6% and 11.2% according to Stefan number 0.0772, 0.1287 and 0.1802 respectively.