136 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVII. No. 422 



jugglery ■' relegated to " incongrous association :" the last part 

 of the report saying, "To accept Mr. Holmes's conclusions, that 

 all rude implements, howsoever and wheresoever found, not only 

 removes the turtle-back of the Delaware valley, but removes the 

 paleolithic implements of Europe, Asia, and Africa from the pre- 

 historic archasology of those continents." In reading the curator's 

 report of the Museum of Archseology relating to Mr. Holmes's 

 work at Piney Branch, and the curator's views thereon, in con- 

 nection with Mr. Holmes's papers in the Atnerican Anthropologist 

 referring to this work, I was greatly surprised to find that Dr. 

 Abbott's opinion and conclusions differed so widely from the con- 

 clusions which I had drawn from a tolerably careful examina- 

 tion of Mr. Holmes's work while excavating, from a careful read- 

 ing of his papers, and from what I knew to be his ideas on the 

 subject. 



Mr. Holmes, under tlie direction of the Bureau of Ethnology, 

 dug trenches into the hill at Piney Branch in order to develop the 

 aboriginal workshop on the site. His papers in the American 

 Anthropologist are simply an expression of what was developed 

 in the trenches. In the January number of the American Anthro- 

 pologist (1890) his plates of his work are as perfect as art can rep- 

 resent such work, or science could desire it should be represented. 

 The objects found scattered throughout the "shop," from the 

 surface to the cobbles in their original position, demonsi rated 

 beyond contradiction that the whole '■ shop'" from end to end, 

 from surface to bed, contained one class of work. Objects identi- 

 cal in material, shape, and manipulation, are found throughout 

 the valley of the Potomac ; and I have hundreds of similar speci- 

 mens from the Patapsco. and South River in Maryland. The 

 shape and work are not distinguishable from those of the paleolith 

 of Europe ; and many persons around Washington concluded that 

 our turtle-back, or possibly, better, the double turtle-back, was of 

 the paleolithic age. The Piney Branch shop demonstrated that 

 on that site probably millions of stones had been worked ; that 

 those stones were identical with the finds of the Potomac and its 

 vicinity. This is accepted by all as beyond contradiction. Of 

 the shop, Mr. Holmes {American Anthropologist, July, 1890, p. 

 224) says, ' ' A hundred or a thousand years may have passed 

 since the discontinuance of work upon this site. In the Dela- 

 ware valley all the necessary eleaients of a time record exist, and 

 there at least the record has been at least partly read." In the 

 American Anthropologist (January, 1890, p. 14) Mr. Holmes says, 

 " It causes me almost a pang of regret at having been forced to 

 the conclusion that the familiar turtle-back or one-faced stone, 

 the double turtle-back or two-faced stone, together with aU simi- 

 lar rude shapes, must, so far as this site is concerned, be dropped 

 wholly and forever from the category of implements." Further, 

 Mr. Holmes, in the same paper (p. 23), says, "Many of the rude 

 implements of the Seine — assigned to a great antiquity and to an 

 unknown race — are nearly identical with our quarry forms. On 

 the Thames the analogues of nearly all classes of rude imple- 

 ments are found in the high, level gravels, thus carrying history 

 back with certainty to remote ages. In the Delaware valley the 

 rudest forms, corresponding to our failure shapes, are obtained 

 from our glacial gravels, and the less rude varieties occur in more 

 recent formations or under conditions that seem to make them 

 safe indices of the steps of progress. In the Potomac valley, on 

 the other hand, all the rude forms appear to be but failures, or 

 unfinished pieces representing stages in the manufacture of arrow 

 and spear points of the Indian." In conclusion (p. 36) Mr. Holmes 

 says that he is ready to modify any of his statements, conclusions, 

 or inferences, when the facts are found to warrant the change. 



If Dr. Abbott can in any place quote Mr. Holmes as either say- 

 ing, or even intimating, as suggested in his report, by " verbal 

 jugglery " or otherwise, that Mr. Holmes claims that the Piney 

 Branch shop has any bearing " on man's antiquity in America;" 

 or if the curator of the American Museum of Archaeology can 

 justify his remarks, "that to accept Mr. Holmes's conclusions, 

 that all rude implements, howsoever and wheresoever found, is 

 not merely to remove the ' turtle-back ' of the Delaware valley, 

 but to remove the paleolithic implements of Europe, Asia, and 

 Africa from the prehistoric archaeology of those continents," — I 

 am willing to stand corrected. If, on the other hand, the doctor 



fails to show that any such theory has been advanced by Mr. 

 Holmes, such as attributed to him, the doctor will have to admit, 

 that, as the representative of the institution of which he is curator, 

 he has been as unfortunate in his remarks as unwarranted in his 

 assertions. 



Nowhere that I can find has Mr. Holmes made any such asser- 

 tion as attributed to him. On the contrary, he has strictly con- 

 fined himself to the character of the work he had in hand, and 

 has demonstrated that the so-called " turtle-back " was not paleo- 

 lithic in the Potomac valley and its vicinity; and this demonstra- 

 tion has generally been accepted as conclusive so far as it applies 

 to such objects on the field mentioned. He carefully leaves the 

 paleolith to its proper sphere, as a matter which those who have 

 studied and examined have described as being found " in the 

 high level gravels, thus carrying history back to remote ages." 

 To the Delaware valley finds Mr. Holmes accords a probable an- 

 tiquity that is creditable to him as a liberal judge. There are in 

 my own collection many surface finds from Anne Arundel County, 

 Md., that are so similar to implements found by Dr. Abbott at 

 Trenton, that an impartial judge might question even the great 

 age of the Trenton implements without laying himself open to 

 the charge of an effort to remove the paleolithic age of any coun- 

 try from the realms of "prehistoric archgeology." 



Notwithstanding the vast amount of valuable work performed 

 by archaeologists in America within the last twenty years, archae- 

 ology may yet be considered in its infancy: and, while fair 

 criticism should be courted by those making archaeological inves- 

 tigations, attributing to an investigator thoughts and notions 

 never advanced by him might be considered as verbal jugglery. 

 New theories are too often advanced, and new implements too 

 often described, the originators of which are frequently the first 

 to repudiate them; and every branch of archseology opens too 

 broad a field for archaeologists to have to lay the institutions which 

 |hey represent open to severe criticism in order to strengthen a 

 pet theory. J. D, McGuiee. 



EllICDtt City, Md., Maroli 2. 



Anthropoid Heads in Stone from Oregon. 



I HAVE seen the pamphlet of Mr. Terry, describing the anthro- 

 poid heads in stone from Columbia River, Oregon. The author 

 offers two suggestions as to their origin. One supposes the ex- 

 istence in former years of anthropoid apes in this region. Pro- 

 fessor Marsh, who owns one of the stone heads, could tell us 

 whether any apes or monkeys are known to have existed there. 

 I do not remember to have seen any literature on that subject. 

 The second supposition is, that the people who made the stone 

 heads once dwelt in lands abounding in apes. This is very much 

 more probable. There are many species of anthropoid apes in 

 western Asia, and there is nothing improbable in the hypothesis 

 that the fabricator of the heads, or his ancestors, drew their in- 

 spiration from across the Pacific. 



If Mr. Terry will allow me, I would suggest that he has omitted 

 a more plausible explanation than either of the foregoing. From 

 Sitka to northern California is the richest timber-belt in the world. 

 The natives of all stocks have depended on the cedar and other 

 trees for house, furniture, clothing, vessels, boats, tools of many 

 kinds, and art materials. They knew how to fell the largest tree, 

 and to divide it into planks and puncheons by means of numerous 

 wedges and stone mauls. These mauls are very abundant in col- 

 lections. I have seen them in the American Museum, where Mr. 

 Terry's collection is installed. Most of them are carved or pecked 

 into the form of animal heads. The material, heavy eyebrows, 

 round bulging eyes, prominent cheeks, are all identical with the 

 Terry specimens; only, in these, the lower part of the face is ape- 

 like. This is easily accounted for. 



The Indians of this region are the most imitative creatures in 

 the world. There are in the National Museum from this very 

 Columbia region, and northward to Puget Sound, collected by 

 Wilkes in 1838, carvings, in wood, bone, and stone, of dogs hitched 

 to boats, steamboats with side-wheels, stoves with pipes and cowls 

 on top, wagons, gates on hinges, glass windows, shingle roofs on 

 houses, and, on a totem post, a missionary stealing two Indian 



