Red ochre is rubbed in the circle and dot designs and the grain of the stone of the pestle shown in Fig. 30 and also in the incised lines on the pipe shown in Fig. 104. Red paint (mercury) partly fills some of the holes and lines on the pendant made of steatite shown in Fig. 119. Because of the mineral nature of this paint, it may have remained a long time and its presence does not necessarily prove that the supposedly old grave in which the object was found is recent. Red paint also fills the circles and dots in the slate object shown in Fig. 120 while vermilion paint is found in the grooves of the animal form shown in Fig. 125 and as this is probably a mineral which would be rather enduring, it does not indicate that the painting was recently done. Painting was done on moccasins in the general plateau area of which this is a part.[365] Spinden states that in the Nez Perce region the natives depended upon minerals for dyes, except in the cases of a wood, which produced a brown dye, and rock slime which produced green[366] and that white, red, blue and yellow earth paints were obtained by them further east from the vicinity of the Grande Ronde Valley;[367] also, that rock surfaces were painted over with brown as a field upon which to peck petroglyphs.[368] In the same region moreover, white clay[369] was used for cleaning clothing. [365] Lewis, p. 190. [366] Spinden, p. 191. [367] _Ibid._, p. 222. [368] _Ibid._, p. 231. [369] _Ibid._, p. 216. _Petroglyphs._ The petroglyphs pecked into the weathered surface of the basaltic columns found in this region, are similar in style to the paintings, being largely line designs of geometric or conventional representation together with a few realistic figures. The pictures are formed by pecking away the weathered surface and exposing the lighter color of the basalt below. Some of them may be very old, but the bruised surfaces making up the lines are not weathered very much in comparison with the surrounding rock surface and yet there is no history of their manufacture. In the Nez Perce region[370] such pecked pictographs are also found, some of them being upon fields painted brown. [370] Spinden, p. 232. In Plate XI are shown petroglyphs on the vertical basaltic columns on the eastern side of the Columbia River at Sentinal Bluffs, immediately above Priest Rapids. They are at the base of the cliffs shown in Plate V. Those shown in Fig. 1 are to the east of the road which runs along a notch blasted in the top of the columns that rise from the river at this point, while those shown in Fig. 2 are about fifteen feet to the southwest on the columns that rise shear from the river.