would be required to produce the 26,812 specimens reported in the collections mentioned? I have inveighed against the speculation by which we sometimes attempt to determine, what a great amount of labor the Indian would do for the accomplishment of so little, sometimes the reverse; but we may fairly assume that the aborigine was not such a consummate idiot as to open a quarry as large as this at Piney Branch, and do as much hard work as must have been done there, with the paltry outcome of the insignificant number of quartzite implements shown in the aggregate collections form the District of Columbia. To complete the information on this branch, I have introduced the consolidated tables VI and VII showing the subdivisions according to material and locality.

TABLE VI. RECAPITULATION ACCORDING TO MATERIAL.

Mr. Holmes' theory is that the sole implement sought to be obtained by the workman from this quarry, was the thin, leafshaped blade, the result of what he calls the third process. His processes Nos. 1 and 2 for making turtle-backs were according to his theory, only designed to lead up to process No. 3, which should produce the thin, leaf-shaped implement.

I think this conclusion does not accord with the facts. Whatever may have been the intention of the workman in making the single or the double turtle-back by processes 1 and 2, (figs. 1, 2, p. 878,) I feel constrained to believe that these were not stages in the production of leaf-shaped implements. I see no evidence of it. I know of no reason why the aboriginal man might not as well have been making the turtle-back for its own sake. It is found all over the United States, it corresponds in a remarkable degree with prehistoric implements from all parts of the world, and no reason is given why it should not have been as much an implement as were the leaf-shaped blades. I do not believe it possible, by any process suggested by Mr. Holmes, nor by the methods apparent from the examination of the leaf-shaped implements themselves, that they were made from the double turtle-back. Mr. Holmes himself is hazy and uncertain about his third process. It consisted, he says, p. 12, "in going over both sides a second and, perhaps, a third time, securing, by the use of small hammers and by deft and careful blows upon the edges, a rude and symmetrical blade." This might mean chipping, or it might mean pecking, hammering or battering. But the process of pecking, hammering or battering is an abrasion by which the substance is worn away grain by grain, passing off in dust; and we know that the leaf-shaped implements were all made by chipping or flaking, and not by pecking, hammering or battering.

I think I may defy Mr. Holmes to make the double turtleback into a leaf-shaped implement by the process of chipping without treating it as an natural unworked stone and splitting it down through its center regardless of the edge which had been before made, thus destroying its edge and with it the implement. In this operation, the double turtle-back has no advantage over a natural pebble, and it must be treated as such. The operation of striking the turtle-back on the edge to split it and thereby reduce its thickness, has the effect of reducing its size correspondingly. It will have to be reduced considerably when made from the natural pebble, but it will be subjected to a double reduction in size when made from the

turtle-back. The turtle-back and the leaf-shaped implement are practically the same size, except the latter is only or inches in thickness. This reduction in thickness cannot be done without striking the turtle-back on its edge (Plate XXVI) thus working its total destruction and treating it as if it were an original pebble. The plate will make this apparent.

This argument demonstrates that the pretended evolutionary series of Mr. Holmes set forth in his Plate IV, (My Plate XIX) is incorrect. While all the implements are there truly represented, yet they do not form a continuous series. The leaf-shaped implements in the bottom row, "3rd stage, both sides re-worked," could not be made from the "turtle backs" in the two upper rows. Therefore, I deny Mr. Holmes' fundamental proposition. I am fully persuaded that the maker of these implements, whatever else he intended to do, did not intend or attempt to make the leaf-shaped blades out of the turtle-back, or at least that turtle-backs were not a stage in the process of making leaf-shaped implements. If my proposition in this regard be true it breaks Mr. Holmes' theory in the middle.

IV.

Mr. Holmes Says, p. 17, "that to a limited extent, the rude forms-the turtle-back and its near relation-are also found widely scattered over the Potomac Valley outside of the shops. on the hills." The suggestion is that these came from this quarry or from similar quarries, and he charges flat-footed that they were the "rejects," "refuse," " debris," "failures."

In January, 1888, the Smithsonian Institution issued a circular, No. 36, asking of its correspondents throughout the United States and Canada, for information as to the number of these implements in their respective localities. This was accompanied with elaborate description and many illustrations, so there should be no mistake in their identity. Answers were then received, from every state in the United States and some from Canada. A consolidation of these answers, with briefs, was published in the Annual Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1888, pp. 766–702, wherein the number reported up to that time is stated at 8,502. This has been largely in

creased since, and if now subjected to actual count, would be multiplied many times. Many of the specimens, those of quartz and quartzite or other refractory material, were rude like those from Piney Branch, Holmes' Pl. IV (Pl. XIX), but those made of flint or other homogeneous material which chipped easily, were smooth and clean, and on comparison with paleolithic implements from Europe could scarcely be distinguished; those from Texas and Utah especially so.

Bearing on this question, I chose 72 specimens out of some hundreds of the "double turtle-backs," as Mr. Holmes calls them, collected by Mr. Wm. Hunter from the neighborhood of Mt. Vernon, Va., and have had them photographed and made into a Plate XXVII. The specimens on this plate could be duplicated from almost any state. A comparison will show that the same implements are found in every state in the United States. The hammer-stone in the center happens to have been from Piney Branch. The introduction of this is to show that "the double turtle-backs" are found elsewhere than at Piney Branch in considerable numbers; that they are not isolated and sporadic, and that they are shapely and regular, even when made from the refractory quartzite, so much so as to demonstrate them to have been intentional and not accidental forms, and were neither " rejects," " refuse," nor" failures."

V.

Mr. Holmes refuses to consider the implements as furnishing any evidence of their own antiquity. He refuses to compare them with European or other known paleolithic implements, or to accept them as paleolithic because of any similarity of form, appearance, or mode of manufacture. I agree that all existing evidence should be presented and I suppose this has been done in the present case. Accepting this proposition only for the sake of this argument, my reply is that he then has no evidence of antiquity of any portion of the quarry.

Mr. Holmes contends that this great quarry, nigh a quarter of a mile square, had been dug over and excavated, (as is shown by the section, his Plate I), to an average depth of six feet and in many places to eight and nine feet, along the entire hillside

and around its point. He contends that every cubic foot of this section had been dug over, in places to the bed rock, and the stones and clay handled and worked. All the boulders and earth had been loosened and shovelled, and the entire mass re-deposited by the diggers, as the work progressed. Mr. Holmes not only admits this anterior disturbance, but claims it as giving the chief importance to his discovery. His Plate III, a photograph of the quarry face, is introduced by him to demonstrate this prior excavation.

But all this has naught to do in showing the antiquity of the quarry. If he refuses consideration and comparison of the implements and objects found therein, there is nothing to show that all this excavation, trench making and stone breaking may not have been done in comparatively modern times. There is nothing to indicate its antiquity unless it be the appearance of the surface, and this is only by the thickness of soil and the size of the trees; and both of these may have been, the latter must have been, commenced since the early part of this century.

If these trenches, of such length, depth and extent, had been dug by the modern Indian, as declared by Mr. Holmes, we can scarcely imagine that it would have been filled up, raked down, and smoothed over to a regular slope as it now is and was when the trees began to grow on it. Mr. Holmes' Plate I shows the regularity of this slope correctly. Where Mr. Holmes' greatest trenches were dug, the slope from the top of the hill to the bottom is regular and true without any ridge. or hollow to indicate an open trench or pit left by the Indian who is alleged to have made it. By whomsoever that quarry was opened and whoever dug those trenches, they were afterward filled up and smoothed over, leaving no break or depres sion affecting the regularity of the outline of the hill-side. Our knowledge of the modern Indian teaches us that he would not perform this, to him, useless labor. This profound disturbance (the French call it remaniement) of the bowlders, clay and earth of the section, leaves no stratification and destroys all evidences of the age of the deposit. There is no fauna.