982 The American Naturalist. [December, 
There have been caches found adjacent in Maryland, and it 
may be suggested that these implements from Piney Branch 
might have been carried beyond the boundaries of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. But, unfortunately for this theory, the im- 
plements which have been found en cache in Maryland and 
adjacent to the District of Columbia are of porphyritic felsite, 
argillite, and other different material from those in the quarry 
at Piney Branch, and thus totally dissimilar from them. J. D. 
McGuire, Esq., of Ellicott City, Md., has furnished the best 
Maryland collection of these implements known (Table I) and 
he has kindly furnished me a sample series which have been 
photographed and are shown in Plate XXIV. 
They show 8 caches—one of them 100 and one 114 speci- 
mens and a total of 365 specimens, not one of which could 
possibly have come from Piney Branch for one cache is of flint 
and jasper specimens, and one of argillite (similar to the leaf- 
shaped blades found by Dr. Abbot at Trenton), and six are 
porphyritic felsite or rhyolite. 
The leaf-shaped implements found en cache in Maryland and 
some parts of Pennsylvania are, I believe, mostly either of ar- 
gillite or porphyritic felsite. Several of these caches from the 
respective localities are to be seen in the Museum, and a sin- 
gle glance is sufficient to establish the absence of their rela- 
tionship with the quartzite from Piney Branch. 
We have now sought for the Piney Branch leaf-shaped 
quartzite blades at the home of the Indian, throughout the Dis- 
trics of Columbia and the adjacent parts of Maryland where, ac- 
cording to Mr. Holmes, they were “ buried in the damp earth ;” 
andwe have sought in vain. Caches of such implements are not 
found within the District nor in its neighborhood. It may be 
hardy to declare a negative and to say that because these 
quartzite implements have not been found that they do not 
exist; but how much more hardy and, indeed, perilous must 
it be for Mr. Holmes to risk everything by declaring the exis- 
tence of these caches when they have never been found. 
The story told by the tables is not completed. Table IV 
tells of the “ flaked implements, knife-blades, scrapers, arrow 
and spear points and perforators” (which Mr. Holmes says 
