HÆMATITES, or BLOOD-STONE, in natural history, an extremely rich and fine iron.
It is very ponderous, and is either of a pale red, a deeper red, or a bluish colour; usually of a very glossy surface; and when broken, of a fine and regularly striated texture; the striæ converging toward the centre of the body; and the masses thereof naturally breaking into fragments of a broad base and pointed end; appearing something pyramidal. The hæmatites is various in its degrees of purity and hardness, as well as in its figure: the finest and most pure is of a botryoid surface; the whole superficies rising into larger or smaller roundish tubercles: sometimes the hæmatites is of a coarse texture, and a laxer structure, in which state it is known to many by the name schistus.