You wouldn’t know it by looking at it, but often sparkly, clear cerussite is one of the main sources of dull, gray lead. However, you would know it by picking it up—it’s heavy! Its specific gravity of 6.5 makes it one of the heaviest minerals you’ll find. It also often occurs as opaque white crystals, and like many other unhealthy minerals that have been used to color paints, it was used to make white paint for many years. If you have an old house that was painted white, the original paint probably contained cerussite. That paint contains toxic lead that can get into soil, float in the air as dust if you sand it, or even go into children’s stomachs if they discover it’s kind of sweet tasting. Certain writers for the Rock Readers site definitely wouldn’t know anything about how sweet tasting lead paint was when they were young…. Outside of dangerous house paint, in nature, you normally find cerussite where you find other lead minerals such as galena and, if you’re lucky, wulfenite.