from twenty to one hundred thousand years, and to a people pre- 
ceding the American Indian. By a study of these collections 
Holmes soon 'became convinced that a serious mistake was Being 
made. Hone of the so called implements showed evidence of 
specialization of form adapting them to a particular use, or of 
any wear by use. During these five years a vigorous, and to 
some extent a bitter controversy was carried on between him and 
the advocates of great antiquity with the result that at the 
A 
close of the period no implement or chipped stone of any kind 
was to be found in an American Museum of repute labelled "pale- 
olithic.” All were shown to be merely the failures of shop and 
quarry sites where the Indians had, with the aid of stone 
hammers-, roughed out blades to be finished afterwards as knives, 
scrappers, spear heads and the like. Experiment on Holmes part 
made it clear that with the mat eri unavailable there were twenty 
or more failures to a single success and these failures were re- 
jected and cast into the refuse heap. 
In 1895 Holmes took a prominent part in the installa- 
tion of the exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution at the '%-iold 
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and in 1894 resigned from the 
Bureau of Ethnology to accept the Head Curatorship of .Anthropology 
in the Field Columbian Museum, 
Chicago, having already been appoint 
ed non resident Professor ox Anthropic Geology, under Professor 
I* C. Chamberlain, in the University of Chicago. At a farewell 
banquet tendered him on leaving Washington by his artistic and 
