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“From the red stone of the quarry

With his hand he broke a fragment,

Moulded it into a pipe head,

Shaped and fashioned it with figures.

From the margin of the river

Took a long reed for a pipe stem,

With its dark green leaves upon it;

Filled the pipe with bark of willow;

With the bark of the red willow;

Breathed upon the neighbouring forest,

Made its great boughs chafe together,

Till in flame they burst, and kindled;

And erect upon the mountains,

Gitche Manito, the mighty,

Smoked the calumet, the Peace Pipe,

As a signal to the nations,” &c.

The tribes of the Missouri make their pipes of a kind of stone called Catlinite, from the red pipe stone quarries upon the head waters of that river, the colour of which is brick red. These stones, when first taken out of the quarry are soft, and easily worked with a knife, but on exposure to the air become hard and take a good polish. The pipes of the Rocky Mountain Indians are some of them wrought with much labour and ingenuity of an argillaceous stone of a very fine texture, found at the north of Queen Charlotte’s Island. This stone is of a blue black colour, and in character similar to the red earth of the Missouri quarry.