1896.] Piney Branch (D. C.) Quarry Workshop. 885 
has so little foundation as to weaken rather than strengthen 
his argument. It is only referred to as being on the level with 
the rest of the paper and to show what a large proportion of 
it is assumption, and how slight is its foundation of fact. 
The method of determining the kind and use of implements, 
their mode of manufacture and the expected benefit which in- 
duced the prehistoric man to expend himself upon them, by 
comparing him with ourselves, with putting him in our places, 
or putting ourselves with our knowledge and skill, culture and 
spirit of invention, in his place, and then deciding everything he 
did from our standpoint, is one of the errors of modern archeol- 
ogists and one which leads them far from the right path. This 
discussion leads Mr. Holmes into the processes of the manu- 
facture of flaked stone tools, and he explains direct or free-hand 
percussion, declares its limitation, how it was the only method 
known in early times, and throughout pages 15 and 16, ex- 
plains the details, giving philosophic dissertations upon the art 
of stone flaking or chipping and, of the development of the 
spirit and technology of art required in this work of mak- 
ing leaf-shaped blades. No better answer could be given to 
this theory than the exhibition of the finely flaked flint imple- 
ments all prehistoric, coming, some of them, from Scandinavia, 
Mexico, and a large number belonging to the paleolithic 
period, found throughout the interior of France in what M. de 
Mortillet calls the “Solutréen epoch,” M. Reinach and others, 
the “Cavern epoch.” Yet Mr. Holmes has never been able to 
reproduce one of them or to overcome the difficulties of their 
fabrication. 
: (To be Continued.) 
