1896.] Piney Branch (D. C.) Quarry Workshop. 883: 
vicious than this? “There is so far no evidence that any in- 
habitant of the Potomac Valley ever aimed to make by flak- 
ing alone any other than the attenuated form,” p. 17. “This 
process leads inevitably to the production of blades in numbers, 
and the supply for the entire year was to be obtained prob- 
ably within a small fraction ofa year, the working period being 
determined by the season, by tribal movements, or by the 
limitations of time.” 
Mr. Holmes disposes these leaf-shaped implements by declar- 
ing them (p. 18) to have “ been roughed out in numbers to a 
stage of advancement that made them portable, and at the same 
time brought them within reach of the processes which he em- 
ployed in finishing, that they were carried away to the villages 
and buried in damp earth (cached) until the time came for 
flaking them into the final forms required by the art. * * * 
This history of these quarry forms is to be completed by their 
final distribution among the inhabitants of the various tribes, 
where we have witnessed the final step in the shaping process 
—the shaping out of specific forms with a bone tool—and their 
final adaptation to use and dispersal over the country.” 
I scarcely know what answer to make to all this. It is so 
complete and perfect an assumption that one scarcely knows 
how to make a rational argument against it. I shall refer 
later to, and show the error of fact contained in this assump- 
tion. These leaf-shaped forms have been found in every age 
of the prehistoric man, in almost every country in the world, 
they have been of every size—from 16 inches in length down to ? 
of aninch. Pl. XX. They are made with all degree of fineness, 
have preserved their general form and characteristics, and we 
may imagine in a general way the use for which they were 
intended. They may have been used as arrow or spear-heads, 
or they may have been inserted in a shaft or handle and used 
as spears, or by shortening the handle, as knives; (figs. 3, 4) 
or they may have been wrapped with hide, bark or grass 
and this served as a handle (fig. 5). But that they were com- 
pleted implements ready for whatever use they might have 
been intended, no prehistoric archeologist of whom I have 
any knowledge has ever doubted. A duplication and extension 
