NO.    4      INDIAN    SITES    ON    THE    RAPPAHANNOCK BUSHNELL  I9 
and  the  vast  amount  of  fragmentary  pottery,  now  recovered  from  the 
site.  And,  of  course,  the  variety  of  objects,  rather  than  the  quantity, 
is  of  the  greater  interest. 
To  describe  the  material  briefly : 
Plate  J. — Specimens  a.  Seven  examples  of  projectile  points  or 
knives,  and  two  side  scrapers,  made  of  dark  brown  argillite,  now 
weathered  and  bleached  to  a  light  yellowish  color.  The  large  broken 
blade  in  the  lower  right  corner  has  recently  been  fractured,  thus 
revealing  the  natural  shade  of  the  argillite  and  the  extent  to  which 
the  surface  has  been  altered  through  long  exposure.  The  condition 
and  appearance  of  the  specimens  suggest  great  age.  The  specimens 
closely  resemble  certain  material  recovered  from  sites  in  the  Dela- 
ware valley,  artifacts  belonging  to  the  so-called  argillite  culture, 
which  have  been  discovered  in  the  yellow  sand  or  soil  below  a  stratum 
of  black  surface  soil." 
Specimens  h.  Twelve  projectile  points  made  of  dark,  very  compact, 
argillitic  slate.  These  also  resemble  specimens  from  the  Delaware 
valley  figured  and  described  in  the  works  just  cited. 
Specimens  c.  Two  specimens  made  of  rhyolite  of  a  light  bluish- 
gray  color,  showing  flow  structure  and  slightly  altered.  A  cache  of 
2^2  pieces,  of  the  same  form  and  material,  many  of  which  are  in  the 
United  States  National  Museum  (U.S.N.M.  no.  756),  were  found 
in  1861  on  the  farm  of  Joshua  Pierce,  on  Rock  Creek,  Washington, 
D.  C.  The  farm  surrounded  the  old  Pierce  Mill,  on  the  bank  of  Rock 
Creek,  where  it  is  now  crossed  below  Tilden  and  Upton  Streets. 
Specimens  d.  Eight  examples  of  comparatively  large  blades  made 
of  rhyolite.  The  majority  are  broken,  but  the  portions  remaining 
reveal  the  characteristic  features.  All  are  very  thin  and  are  beautiful 
examples  of  flaking.  These  are  altered  to  a  greater  degree  than  are 
the  two  specimens  c.  The  stone,  containing  crystals  of  feldspar,  was 
evidently  derived  from  quarries  in  South  Mountain,  "  a  high  group 
of  ridges  extending  from  near  the  Potomac  at  Harpers  Ferry  to  the 
southern  side  of  the  Susquehanna  at  Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania."  The 
quarries  were  discovered  by  Holmes  in  1892,''  one,  very  extensive, 
"  is  75  miles  northwest  of  Washington,  and  was  readily  accessible  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Potomac  and  Patuxent  rivers."    Numerous  scat- 
""  Compare  Hawkes,  E.  W.,  and  Linton,  Ralph,  A  pre-Lenape  site  in  New 
Jersey.  Anthropol.  Publ.  Univ.  Pennsylvania,  vol.  6,  no.  3,  pi.  17,  Philadelphia, 
1916.  Also  illustrations  in  Spier,  Leslie,  The  Trenton  argillite  culture,  Anthro- 
pol. Papers  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.,  vol.  22,  pt.  4,  New  York,  1918. 
-^  Holmes,  W.  H.,  Stone  implements  of  the  Potomac-Chesapeake  Tidewater 
Province.    15th  Ann.  Rep.  Bur.  Amer.  Ethnol.,  pp.  72-77,  Washington,  1897. 
