is a part of Mr. Holmes' theory that "the working of such a quarry led inevitably to the production of blades in numbers (meaning in great numbers), and it follows that they were removed “in numbers" (p. 18), but my examination demonstrates the error of this theory, for it shows the blades of quartzite (which alone could have been carried from Piney Branch Quarry) to be in the minority.

Again, Mr. Holmes theorizes (p. 18) that a "time came for flaking them (the blades) into the final forms, knife-blades, scrapers, perforators, and arrow and spear points required in the arts." Therefore, I made still another table (III) to show any of these final forms which might possibly have been made from leaf-shaped blades; and, again, we find the theory not

TABLE III. ARROW AND SPEAR HEADS WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE FROM LEAF-SHAPED BLADES.

borne out by facts, for of all these leaf-shaped forms, numbering 2,634, only 694 were of quartzite and could have come from Piney Branch quarry. Thus, it appears that of the leafshaped blades found in the District and its environments, cached or not cached, the greater number have been of other material than quartzite, and must have come from other localities than Piney Branch quarry. Is not all this cumulative evidence of error somewhere in Mr. Holmes' theory?

There have been caches found adjacent in Maryland, and it may be suggested that these implements from Piney Branch might have been carried beyond the boundaries of the District of Columbia. But, unfortunately for this theory, the implements which have been found en cache in Maryland and adjacent to the District of Columbia are of porphyritic felsite, argillite, and other different material from those in the quarry at Piney Branch, and thus totally dissimilar from them. J. D. McGuire, Esq., of Ellicott City, Md., has furnished the best Maryland collection of these implements known (Table I) and he has kindly furnished me a sample series which have been photographed and are shown in Plate XXIV.

They show 8 caches-one of them 100 and one 114 specimens and a total of 365 specimens, not one of which could possibly have come from Piney Branch for one cache is of flint and jasper specimens, and one of argillite (similar to the leafshaped blades found by Dr. Abbot at Trenton), and six are porphyritic felsite or rhyolite.

The leaf-shaped implements found en cache in Maryland and some parts of Pennsylvania are, I believe, mostly either of argillite or porphyritic felsite. Several of these caches from the respective localities are to be seen in the Museum, and a single glance is sufficient to establish the absence of their relationship with the quartzite from Piney Branch.

We have now sought for the Piney Branch leaf-shaped quartzite blades at the home of the Indian, throughout the Districs of Columbia and the adjacent parts of Maryland where, according to Mr. Holmes, they were "buried in the damp earth;" and we have sought in vain. Caches of such implements are not found within the District nor in its neighborhood. It may be hardy to declare a negative and to say that because these quartzite implements have not been found that they do not exist; but how much more hardy and, indeed, perilous must it be for Mr. Holmes to risk everything by declaring the existence of these caches when they have never been found.

The story told by the tables is not completed. Table IV tells of the "flaked implements, knife-blades, scrapers, arrow and spear points and perforators" (which Mr. Holmes says

were common to the region), which were not from the Piney Branch quarry because not made of quartzite. This table shows 21497 such specimens. Table III, showed 2,534 specimens which might have been made from leaf-shaped blades,

TABLE IV. OTHER IMPLEMENTS, SUCH AS KNIVES, SCRAPERS, PERFORATORS, ARROW AND SPEAR HEADS, ETC., APPARENTLY NOT MADE FROM LEAF

Total implements not made from leaf-shaped blades.............. 21,497

but of these, only 694 were of quartzite. The aggregate of these counts shows 24,031 (21,497 +2, 534) specimens in these collections not made from Piney Branch quartzite leaf-shaped blades, against 694 which might have been.

Plate XXV shows how arrow and spear heads are, or may be, made from leaf-shaped implements. The five specimens at the top of the Plate are such. They were at one time leafshaped implements, and by the making of the notch and stem, they have been changed to arrow or spear heads, that is to say, they have been subjected to the second process which has changed them "into the final forms re

quired by the arts" (p. 18). The four specimens at the bottom are leaf-shaped blades of quartzite found on the surface at Bennings, D. C., and might or might not have been the product of the quarry at Piney Branch. They form part of the 330 in Table II from that locality. Those in the middle are also leaf-shaped, found on the surface in the District or adjoining it in Maryland or Virginia, but are of quartz, argillite, shale, porphyritic felsite, all of them other material than quartzite, and so they could not have been the product of the quarry at Piney Branch. They form part of 541 in Table II and of the 1948 in Table V.

TABLE V. RECAPITULATION ACCORDING TO FORM.

a. This omits the 500 from Piscataway because it is so far distant from Piney Branch and because we have no report of other implements from that locality. This cache was reported by Mr. Reynolds, who had but a single implement, given him by the finder, as a specimen.

In considering these tables and their bearing on the Piney Branch Quarry, we are to keep continually in mind that the sole and only material in that quarry was quartzite. There was no quartz pophyritic felsite, rhyolite, shale, ferruginous sandstone, flint, jasper or chert found in any of its deposits, and all implements made from any of these materials are to be excluded from consideration because impossible to have come from that quarry. Keeping this in view, these tables show

the following state of facts: Among all those implements from the District of Columbia, but two caches of quartzite were found containing together only 12 leaf-shaped blades of 1.948 leaf-shaped blades not cached, only 883 were of quartzite; of 2,534 common implements, such as arrow- and spear-heads etc., which from their form might have been made from leafshaped blades, only 694 were of quartzite, making a total of 1.589 quartzite implements which, according to Mr. Holmes' theory, might have come from the Piney Branch Quarry, out of a total of 25,815 implements examined.

Out of all the "1,000 turtle-backs" (p. 14) gathered by Mr. Holmes, their "500,000 brothers and sisters' (p. 12) left, and the "millions of worked stone and unshaped fragments" (p. 7), all "refuse" (p. 12), "waste, failures" (p. 14), of which "these quarries on Rock Creek are the main source," all being done to produce these leaf-shaped blades to be carried away and buried (cached) in the damp earth "that they might be preserved to be made into the final forms required by the arts" (p. 18).—Out of all this toil, the result found up to date is but 2 caches with 12 blades. "The mountain was in labor," etc., etc. Out of a total of 26,812 implements reported in the collections mentioned, but 1,589 were of quartzite leaf-shaped blades that could have come from the Piney Branch quarry. Yet the leaf-shaped blades were, according to Mr. Holmes, the "entire product of the quarry (pp. 13 and 15). What a deal of sack for a pennyworth of bread.

Mr. Holmes' theory that the leaf-shaped blade was the sole product of the quarry workshop, to be afterwards "flaked into the final form " of the common implements of the region, be correct, then the problem may be stated according to the arithmetical law of proportion, as follows: If 1,589 leaf-shaped quartzite blades, cached and not cached, finished and unfinished, have been produced from Indian toil and exertion in making the "500,000 turtle-backs," and the "million of worked stones which now occupy the site" (p. 7), all of which are wastes and failures; then how much toil and exertion, and how many millions of worked stones, wastes and failures,