HOUGH— EXPERIMENTAL WORK 



the quartzite objects to the village-sites, completing the series with 

 the finished arrowheads and knives. His memoir on "Stone Imple- 

 ments of the Potomac-Chesapeake Tidewater Province" in the Fif- 

 teenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology shows the 

 fruition of Holmes' methods of technic here embracing the knife, arrow, 

 drill, and scraper, in various materials; the series of battered and 

 abraded stone implements, as the celt and stone ax, pestles, mullers, 

 "ceremonials", etc.; and incised or cut- work soapstone utensils, as 

 vessels, pipes, etc. 



The idea of the elucidation of ancient aboriginal technology, "the 

 natural history method" as Mason termed it, is ever present in 

 Holmes' writings. It is the common sense of the science of culture 

 history. 



The desire for explicit statement and exactness of seeing, which 

 is the first qualification of an artist and a powerful adjunct to the 

 work of a scientific man, is remarkably brought out in the scientific 

 methods of Holmes. The first white man who ever recorded his im- 

 pressions of a cliff-dwelling, we can imagine his enthusiasm as with 

 eager pencil he put upon paper the facts of their location and archi- 

 tecture. Years afterward he threw before our delighted eyes the vast 

 panorama of the Central American temples, made to stand again 

 through his genius in all their magnificence above tropical forests. 

 This work is but an amplification of the patient care with which he 

 reconstructed the steps in the manufacture of an humble arrowhead. 

 Holmes' work in American archeology is vital; it tells the story; it is 

 an invitation to culture historians to pursue a method that uncovers 

 underlying facts; it is free to all, and fortunate is the student who 

 takes his method seriously. The methods of Holmes have given dig- 

 nity and standing to American archeology that have been recognized 

 throughout the world, and it is apparent that his influence has raised 

 the standard of the science wherever its activities are known. 



United States National Museum 

 Washington, D.C. 



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