914 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



fore the author has uot allowed any of these distinctious to iufluence 

 his classification. 



That these diflerent classes and the forms on which they depend 

 should overlap and run into one another would seem inevitable, thus 

 makiuji;- it sometimes doubtful to which class the implement should 

 belong, and even difficult to decide correctly. The classification which 

 is proposed, and indeed any classification which can be made is, as 

 before stated, rather for the convenience of the modern student than 

 from any intention of the primitive maker or user of these implements. 

 While there may have been workshops which turned out certain forms of 

 implements more than others, and while certain forms are found in 

 given localities in greater numbers than in others, yet does not think 

 that this was always the result of a well-defined intention on the part 

 of the maker. If an arrowpoint, intended to have a convex edge, should 

 by an unlucky stroke or an unintentional break be spoilt for that shape, 

 it could still be remodeled and the edge made straight instead of con- 

 vex, or concave instead of straight. So, also, that which was intended 

 as a barbed arrowpoint, if one of the barbs should be broken, the barb 

 on the other side could also be chipped off and the implement be made 

 shouldered, but not barbed; and so on in other instances. 



The author has bethought of what he considers a good illustration of 

 the differences in these implements. In the show window of a modern 

 shoe store will be seen shoes of every imaginable shape, size, kind, and 

 variety; no two pairs of them are alike, running the entire range from 

 large to small, from coarse to fine, from high to low, from thick to thin, 

 from costly to cheap; yet they are all shoes, and all intended for the 

 same object of foot wear. The workmen may all make the same kind 

 of shoes or make different kinds at different times, yet they surely 

 are all shoemakers. So it was with the arrow makers and the arrow- 

 points which they made; the difference in the arrowpoints may have 

 been produced partly by the fashion of the locality, by the taste and 

 ability of the workmen, or by the possibilities of the material; what 

 may have been intended for one kind of arrowpoint may, by reason of 

 the refractory material, have been changed to another, and the same 

 workmen in the same workshop may, without having seriously intended, 

 and perhaps without giving a good reason in every case, have produced 

 nearly every kind of arrowpoint. 



If the author made a separate class for every change in detail, he 

 would have an infinite number of classes with infinitesimal differences. 

 He has preferred to ignore these, make his divisions broad and plain, 

 and temporize with the overlapping forms. 



