1896.] Piney Branch (D. C.) Quarry Workshop. 987 
I think this conclusion does not accord with the facts. 
Whatever may have been the intention of the workman in 
making the single or the double turtle-back by processes 1 and 
2, (figs. 1, 2, p. 878,) I feel constrained to believe that these 
were not stages in the production of leaf-shaped implements. 
I see no evidence of it. I know of no reason why the aboriginal 
man might not as well have been making the turtle-back for its 
own sake. It is found all over the United States, it corresponds 
in a remarkable degree with prehistoric implements from all 
parts of the world, and no reason is given why it should not 
have been as much an implement as were the leaf-shaped blades. 
I do not believe it possible, by any process suggested by Mr. 
Holmes, nor by the methods apparent from the examination 
of the leaf-shaped implements themselves, that they were 
made from the double turtle-back. Mr. Holmes himself is 
hazy and uncertain about his third process. It consisted, he 
says, p. 12, “in going over both sides a second and, perhaps, a 
third time, securing, by the use of small hammers and by deft 
and careful blows upon the edges, a rude and symmetrical 
blade.” This might mean chipping, or it might mean peck- 
ing, hammering or battering. But the process of pecking, 
hammering or battering is an abrasion by which the sub- 
stance is worn away grain by grain, passing off in dust; and 
we know that the leaf-shaped implements were all made by 
chipping or flaking, and not by pecking, hammering or bat- 
tering. 
I think I may defy Mr. Holmes to make the double turtle- 
back into a leaf-shaped implement by the process of chipping 
without treating it as an natural unworked stone and splitting 
it down through its center regardless of the edge which had 
been before made, thus destroying its edge and with it the 
implement. In this operation, the double turtle-back has no 
advantage over a natural pebble, and it must be treated as 
such. The operation of striking the turtle-back on the edge 
to split it and thereby reduce its thickness, has the effect of 
reducing its size correspondingly. It will have to be reduced 
considerably when made from the natural pebble, but it will 
be subjected to a double reduction in size when made from the 
