1896.] Piney Branch (D. C.) Quarry Workshop. 985 
the following state of facts: Among all those implements from 
the District of Columbia, but two caches of quartzite were 
found containing together only 12 leaf-shaped blades of 1.948 
leaf-shaped blades not cached, only 888 were of quartzite; of 
2,534 common implements, such as arrow- and spear-heads 
etc., which from their form might have been made from leaf- 
shaped blades, only 694 were of quartzite, making a total of 
1.589 quartzite implements which, according to Mr. Holmes’ 
theory, might have come from the Piney Branch Quarry, out 
of a total of 25,815 implements examined. 
Out of all the “1,000 turtle-backs” (p. 14) gathered by 
Mr. Holmes, their “500,000 brothers and sisters’ (p. 12) 
left, and the “millions of worked stone and unshaped trag- 
ments” (p. 7), all “refuse” (p. 12), “waste, failures” (p. 
14), of which “these quarries on Rock Creek are the main 
source,” all being done to produce these leaf-shaped blades to 
be carried away and buried (cached) in the damp earth “that 
they might be preserved to be made into the final forms re- 
quired by the arts” (p. 18).—Out of all this toil, the result 
found up to date is but 2 caches with 12 blades. “The moun- 
tain was in labor,” etc., etc. Out of a total of 26,812 imple- 
ments reported in the collections mentioned, but 1,589 were of 
quartzite leaf-shaped blades that could have come from the 
Piney Branch quarry. Yet the leaf-shaped blades were, ac- 
cording to Mr. Holmes, the “entire product of the quarry ” 
(pp. 13 and 15). What a deal of sack for a pennyworth of 
bread. 
Mr. Holmes’ theory that the leaf-shaped blade was the sole 
product of the quarry workshop, to be afterwards “ flaked 
into the final form ” of the common implements of the region, 
be correct, then the problem may be stated according to the 
arithmetical law of proportion, as follows: If 1,589 leaf-shaped 
quartzite blades, cached and not cached, finished and un- 
finished, have been produced from Indian toil and exertion 
in making the “500,000 turtle-backs,” and the “ million of 
worked stones which now occupy the site” (p. 7), all of which 
are wastes and failures; then how much toil and exertion, 
and how many millions of worked stones, wastes and failures, 
Ei 
