978 The American Naturalist. [December, 
forms with a tool of bone—and their final adaptation to use and 
dispersal over the country,” (p. 18). 
“ Having reached a definite conclusion that the blades were 
the exclusively worked product of the quarry,” he “ was led to in- 
vestigate their subsequent history” (p. 18). The italics are 
mine. His investigation into the subsequent history of these 
objects led him to define a cache. “ A ‘cache’ is a cluster or 
hoard of stone implements, numbering, perhaps, a score or 
more, secreted or deposited in the earth and never exhumed. 
Such hoards are frequently discovered by workmen in the 
fields,” (p. 18). 
Pursuing the “ subsequent history” of these implements, I pro- 
pose to go into the region round about Piney Branch, examine 
the aboriginal village sites of the District of Columbia, the 
fields containing these alleged secret hoards or caches, and the 
known places of aboriginal occupation within the neighbor- 
hood where these implements were said to have been carried, 
and see what have actually been found there, what of caches, 
what of leaf-shaped blades, and what of implements which had 
been subjected to the (fourth or other) “ processes to be em- 
ployed in finishing, when they were flaked into the final forms 
required in the arts” (p. 18), and I propose we compare the 
the objects actually found in these distant places, with what 
Mr. Holmes said would be found. 
I look through my Department in the National Museum for 
the leaf-shaped implements which, according to the theory of 
Mr. Holmes, were made at Piney Branch and carried out to 
the homes of the Indians, their makers, in the District of 
Columbia, and I find the numbers insignificant ; while, as to 
caches, the Bureau of Ethnology, through Prof. Cyrus Thomas, 
has lately made a catalogue of the “Known Prehistoric 
Works in the Eastern United States,” among them deposits, 
hoards, or caches, and there is not a single cache reported from 
the District of Columbia, this, despite the statement of Mr. 
Holmes that “ such hoards are frequently discovered by work- 
men in the field.” 5 
In the settlement of these questions, it is of high importance 
that so far as possible, facts and not guesses should be given. 
