Hematite

“ Some hematite is formed by the alteration of magnetite, another iron mineral. This hematite is known as martite, and some of it still has the crystal shape (an octahedron or a dodecahedron) that belonged to the magnetite. Most of the hematite found in the Llano uplift area of central Texas is believed to be altered magnetite. In this central Texas area, some massive, granular martite has been mined at the Gamble prospect, a few miles southeast of Fredonia in northeastern Mason County, where it occurs as layers in Precambrian gneiss. ”

“ The blue coloring is apparently due to the presence of impurities; the black ore is evidently magnetite; and the steel-gray mineral, failing in the characteristic properties of magnetite, finds its class place under hematite. Hematite differs from magnetite in representing a higher degree of oxidation. It is often found, as indicated above, in beds distributed in close conjunction with those of magnetite. This ore is a valuable source of iron. Hematite commonly occurs in earthy materials, as red ochre. Its streak is red. All rocks of a reddish or red color owe the color to this oxide of iron. ”

“ Hematite makes a deep red mark or streak on a hard white rock or unglazed porcelain.
Hematite varies in hardness enough that some specimens can be scratched easily with iron, whereas others are almost as hard as that metal itself. Where clay occurs mixed with hematite, as in paint ore, it may be quite soft, but “blue kidney ore” is usually hard.
Hematite is the ore (iron ore) mineral at Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob mining districts and in the various sink-hole mines or pits in south central Missouri. ”

“ In such cases we have fibrous, oolitic or compact masses, according to the form in which the limonite occurred. The transformation from limonite into hematite involves some heat to drive out the water of crystallization, but nothing like what is involved in metamorphism.
Hematite is the source of 90% of the iron mined in this country. Part of it comes from the famous Clinton iron ore, a layer a foot or more in thickness; starting in New York State, and extending all down the Appalachian Mountains to Alabama, where it is ten or more feet thick and the basis of the Birmingham iron industries. ”

“ This image is of the exceptional rock called "Berry Bowl" in the "Eagle Crater" outcrop. The study of this "blueberry-strewn" area and the identification of hematite as the major iron-bearing element within these sphere-like grains helped scientists confirm their hypothesis that the hematite in these martian spherules was deposited in water. To separately analyze the mineralogical content of three main features within this area -- blueberries, dust and rock -- it was important that the rock abrasion tool's brush was able to rest on a relatively berry-free spot. ”

“ It is drawn of half the dimensions of the original, which measures three and a half inches in length by one and a fourth in its greatest diameter, and weighs not far from four ounces. No. 2, also of half size, is well worked from a dark brown hematite, and is highly polished. No. 3 is also of hematite. It differs from the others in its shape, which is double conoid, and has the groove around the middle. Hematite seems to have been a favorite material for these ornaments. No. 5 is of quartz, and is much the rudest which has fallen under notice. ”

“ Louis, Missouri. From Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas.
Hematite objects do not seem to have served as tools—save perhaps as celts and axes—but on the contrary they are of the problematical class. The bright color of the stone and its peculiar properties doubtless appealed to stone-age man. The fact that hematite celts are found in graves and mounds and also hematite plummets, whereas ordinary stone axes are seldom, if ever, found in mounds or graves, would strengthen the hypothesis that objects made of this peculiar stone were considered apart from the ordinary run of artifacts.
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Fig. ”

“ Pyrargyrite, the sulphide of silver and antimony, is distinguished by its dark red color and the purplish streak. It may look like prousite, but is easily distinguished from the latter which has a scarlet streak. It also at times looks like hematite and cinnabar, but the hematite has a hardness of 6, and the latter has the bright red color throughout, while pyrargyrite turns black when exposed to the light, so that the characteristic red color will be seen only on fresh surfaces. The characteristic red color can only be kept on the mineral if it is constantly protected from the light. ”

“ Hematite is extremely widespread in rocks of all ages, especially in metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Some occurs as crystals in igneous rocks, and some in vein deposits. It is the greatest ore of iron in the United States, especially in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Alabama. ”

“ Red hematite is found in Cebú, brown hematite in Paracale and other parts of Camarines Norte, and both red and brown in Capiz. In Misamis oxydized iron is found. Some of the iron about San Miguel de Mayumo is magnetic.
I do not believe that at present, and for many years to come, it is possible to work these ores and make iron and steel to compete with American or British imported iron. ”

“ What we've seen is one small part of the story. We've got to fold that in with other patches of soil, the outcrop, what's above the outcrop, all the other pieces. We have gotten another interesting clue. We're getting more information about composition. This is mini-TES data. Very nice instrument that has provided us some great data. This is one of our images overlayed in color with the concentration of hematite. First mineral map from the surface of another planet. The blue stuff is low in hematite. The red is height in hematite. ”

“ The crystallized variety consists of 70 iron and 30 oxygen in 100 parts. The concretionary kind, or hematite, has a brown-red colour; is solid, compact, and sometimes very hard; its surface may be filed and polished so as to acquire a lustre almost metallic; its internal structure is fibrous, and it exhibits sometimes a resemblance to splinters of wood. Its outer surface is constantly concretionary, mammelated, and presents occasionally sections of a sphere, or cylinders attached to each other. This is the blood-stone of the burnisher of metals. ”

“ Benignant Nature formed for mortals’ good.”
Marbodus. The Haematite obtains its name from the Greek HAIMATITES, blood-like. It is a specular iron ore of reddish, brown, steely gray, and iron black colours. Commercially it is spelt Hematite, though it is also written as Ematite, Emathites, Emathitis.
Sotacus, described by Pliny as one of the most ancient writers, classified five varieties of haematite, as follows:
1. Ethiopic, which he said was a remedy for burns and inflamed eyes. It is probable that this is the Ethiopian Stone, a hard species of flint. ”

“ Nouvelle Théorie de la formation des filons, p. 303. According to Bergman, antimony is found in kidney-shaped masses, and in threads, in veins of galena and hematites. It is also found native at Carlsen, and in the mines of Sala. Journal des Mines, No. xvi. p. 34.
↑ Observations on the Western Counties, vol. II. p. 74. ↑ Penzilly in Breage parish affords hematite of a liver brown colour, mined will Manganese. This fossil is found in a vein of yellow friable iron ore, through which it runs in veins of different thickness and position. Klaproth's Miner. ”

“ When rocks contain but a fraction of 1 per cent of iron, the soil on their weathered outcrops, owing to the removal of the more soluble ingredients and the leaving of the less soluble 344 oxidized iron, have a yellow, brown, or red colour, and in some instances this process of concentration has produced workable iron ore. Limonite and earthy hematites occur widely throughout the Appalachian region, in central New York, and westward to the Mississippi Valley. ”

“ Pure hematosine or coloring matter, when it is coagulated, is a dark brown mass, tasteless and inodorous; when heated it does not smell, but swells up and evolves ammoniacal products; it is insoluble in water, alcohol and ether; it forms, with the mineral acids, compounds which are insoluble in water but soluble in alcohol.
By caustic alkalies it is dissolved with a red-blood color, and these combinations are soluble in water, alcohol and ether. Hematosine contains neither phosphorus nor sulphur, but iron in large quantities. ”

“ Brown considers that the pigment produced by the parasite, in its metabolism of the haemoglobin of the red cell, may act as a haemolysin, he having found that intravenous injections of haematin were capable of producing marked anaemia. It is well known that a far greater number of red cells are destroyed in a paroxysm than would be accounted for by the actual percentage of red cells destroyed by parasites. The endothelial cells take up actively this malarial pigment or haemozoin and are damaged or destroyed thereby. Haematin injections also tend to destroy leucocytes and platelets. ”

“ The coal-dust and the iron-filings are often sharp and jagged fragments, which penetrate the delicate tissues, and the escaping red blood-corpuscles are acted upon by the amoeboid cells in the air-passages, with the consequent formation of hæmatin or hæmatoidin, as are the blood-corpuscles in larger hemorrhages. The inhaled pigment finds its way, either directly or by the agency of amoeboid cells, into the lymphatics and fibrous tissue of the lungs, and remains indefinitely either in the bronchial and pulmonary lymphatic glands or in the interstitial tissue of the lungs. ”

“ Much haematite occurs in a compact or massive form, often mammillary, and presenting on fracture a fibrous structure. The reniform masses are known as kidney ore. Such red ore is generally neither so dense nor so hard as the crystals. ”

“ One gram of haemoglobin crystals can combine with 1.34 cc. of oxygen. On destruction with an acid or alkali, haemoglobin yields a pigment portion, haematin, and a protein portion, globin, the latter belonging to the group of the histones (Gr. ἱστός, web, tissue) . 80 In this cleavage the iron is found in the pigment. By the use of a strong acid, it may be made to yield iron-free pigment, the remainder of the molecule being much further decomposed. ”

“ There is in the blood a red colouring matter, called Hæmatosin. It is found by chemical analysis that Iron is an essential part of this substance. The existence of the right amount of Hæmatosin in the blood is of vital importance. It is contained in the red globules of the blood. When it is diminished in quantity, the number of these red globules is lessened in the same proportion. This produces a paleness of all the tissues, an inactivity of the muscular fibre, an impairment of all the animal functions, and a general languor and debility of the whole frame. This is Anæmia. ”

“ Haemosiderin, an iron-containing pigment (probably an hydrated ferrous oxide) , is found in more or less loose combination with protein substances in an amorphous form as brownish or black granules. Cellular activity and oxygen appear to be essential for its development; it is found usually in the cells of certain organs, or it may be deposited in the inter cellular tissues. Haemosiderin in the normal process of haemolysis is stored up in the cells of certain organs until required by the organism for the formation of fresh haemoglobin. ”

“ Certain persons have isohaemolysins in their blood which dissolve the red cells of other persons and in paroxysmal haemoglobinuria autohaemolysins may be present which can destroy the patient’s own red cells. This auto-haemolysis seems operative only when a low temperature is followed by a high one. When haemoglobinaemia exists the liver converts it into bile pigment causing bilious stools and jaundice. If one-sixth of the red cells are destroyed haemoglobinuria results. ”

“ Thus, in anæmia, there is a deficiency of the Hæmatosin of the blood corpuscles. In simple debility a want of a similar nature probably exists. In rheumatic fever and other disorders an excess of acid is formed and eliminated, possibly from a want of the alkali by which it should be neutralized. In common inflammatory fever there is an abnormal oxidation of the Proteinaceous compounds, possibly arising, as we shall see hereafter, from a failure of some principles which are the proper food of the oxygen. ”

“ With the reservations that only in the case of certain red haematite bedded deposits can any estimate be made of relative accuracy, say within 10%; that the concentration deposits of brown ore can be estimated only with an accuracy represented by a factor varying between 0.7 and 3; and that the great Lake Superior and the less known Adirondack deposits can be estimated within 15 to 20%, the total supply of the country was estimated at 79,594,220,000 long tons—73,210,415,000 of which were credited to haematite ores and 5,054,675,000 to magnetite. ”

“ It is a rare condition, and must be distinguished from hematuria, or blood in the urine, which is common. In both conditions chemic tests will show hemoglobin, but in the latter the microscope will reveal the presence of red corpuscles. Urines which contain notable amounts of hemoglobin have a reddish or brown color, and may deposit a sediment of brown, granular pigment.
Hemoglobinuria occurs when there is such extensive destruction of red blood-cells within the body that the liver cannot transform all the hemoglobin set free into bile-pigment. ”

“ A hematoma acts as an irritant, inflammation ensues around it and it is encapsuled by embryonic tissue, which, by organizing into fibrous tissue, forms a blood cyst and gradually absorbs the fluid blood, the cysts contents becoming thicker and thicker. A fibrous scar may remain, and a blood clot, with very much indurated surrounding tissue, giving a hard edge, is noticed after bruises of the periosteum. If serum is not absorbed, hematoidin forms and the fluid becomes clear. ”