The hematite beds in various portions of the United States furnished the Indians with paint and with implements. Hematite, like copper, being different from other materials with which he was familiar appealed to the aborigine. Its bright red color attracted him, and although he found most of it very hard, yet he made use of it to a remarkable extent when one considers how refractory it was for him to work. Hematite is found on the surface in large quantities in portions of Missouri and Arkansas, in western Virginia, Ohio, and elsewhere. Most of the hematite seems to come from Missouri. It was common there, and therefore the native made of it grooved hematite axes, which he did not do elsewhere in this country. One supposes that hematite was exchanged and bartered with remote tribes. Just as in the case of copper, the natives of Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and Michigan prized their hematite highly and made of it their most perfect plummet-shaped ornaments, hematite celts, and such other objects as it was possible for them to manufacture. The softer kinds of hematite were ground into paint, and there are frequently found on the village-sites along the Ohio River small blocks of hematite worn to flat surfaces. There is in the Arkansas region a very hard blue-red or blue-gray hematite. How the Indians cut this into symmetrical oval plummets has always been a mystery to me. If the rough nugget was ground by means of other stones or sand, one is scarcely able to conceive how the finished article was produced. The process must have been long and laborious, much more so than the manufacture of an effigy pipe, or the making of a problematical form. [Illustration: FIG. 690. (S. 1–1.) Eight hematite objects from the Andover collection. In the upper right-hand corner is a hematite pebble, polished on two of its angles and rough on the other side. This illustrates how hematite was cut and ground until reduced to the desired shape. Flint scratchings are still plain on the surface. Just beneath it is a triangular bit of hematite. This is of soft hematite. The flat surface may be due to grinding in order to obtain paint. Beneath are two hematite cones. The four specimens to the left represent hematite objects in various stages of manufacture. ] [Illustration: FIG. 691. (S. 1–2.) These are from the collection of George Y. Hull, St. Joseph, Missouri. 1. Celt from mound, Andrew County, Missouri. Smooth and well made but not polished. 2. Plumb much pitted by age, surface find, Callaway County, Missouri. 3. A fine truncated cone used as a paint-grinder. Top of cone is worn and depressed from use. Surface find, Callaway County, Missouri. 4. Finely polished celt, surface find, Doniphan County, Kansas. 5. From an old grave near the village-site at Wathena, Kansas. 6. Axe with flat top and flat side,—a surface find, Callaway County, Missouri.