876 The American Naturalist. [November, 
been accomplished since the laying out of the city of Wash- 
ington. 
9. I make further objection to Mr. Holmes’ theory that it 
assumes jurisdiction of all questions, controverted or not, con- 
cerning the age of the quarry, and decides them in such man- 
ner as to preclude all further examination. If his theory that 
the quarry was opened and worked and the implements made 
by the modern Indian be correct then his decision closes the 
investigation and passes a final judgment from which there is 
no appeal. 
I. 
A portion of the interested public seem to be of the opinion 
that Mr. Holmes’ excavation at Piney Branch wasa severe blow 
to the possibility of a Paleolithic Period in the United States, 
if,it did not destroy that theory altogether. I was not shaken 
in my faith. My judgment and, I may say without egotism, my 
years of study of the subject, have given me such an under- 
standing of it as that the excavation at Piney Branch has not 
caused me to reverse my opinion. If Paleolithic Man existed 
in America, the traces will be found elsewhere, and a final ad- 
verse decision cannot be made upon evidence from a _— 
locality. Therefore I could bide my time. 
If the excavation at Piney Branch belonged really to pre- 
historic times, it is equally favorable to a Paleolithic Period as 
against it. The investigation reveals nothing incompatible 
with that theory. The conclusions of Mr. Holmes as an- 
nounced in his paper were opposed to this, but conclusions are 
not facts, and renowned investigators have been known to 
discover many facts, all true, on which they based conclusions 
which were all error. There are some things in Mr. Holmes’ 
paper not facts but conclusions stated as though they were 
facts, frcm which I entirely dissent. Some of these, I propose 
to examine. In this paper, the facts of discovery, as stated by 
Mr. Holmes, will be admitted ; the errors of argument, theory 
and conclusion will be combatted. 
Prof. Holmes’ first five pages (Amer. Anthrop. IV. Jan., 
1890.) are employed with the history of the locality ; pp. 5 to 
9 are filled with a description of the work done and the 
