The critical reader will wonder why I have quoted at length from certain ethnologists on such subjects as textiles, bows and arrows, clothing, pottery, and pipes, and omitted extensive quotations in other sections. This is done purposely. In the field of ethnology much work has been done. The “Handbook of American Indians” covers fully such subjects as the bow, arrow, blanket, clothing, etc. Professor Mason was our highest authority on the basket and textiles generally, as is Professor Holmes on ceramic art. No possible improvement could have been made by me on the published studies of these men. And as “The Stone Age” carries out in detail the plan of the “Handbook,” I have embodied their papers in part or in whole, where such papers dealt with titles which I had not made the subject of a special study. Of problematical forms, the divisions of chipped implements, hematites, agricultural implements, hammers, pestles, mortars, tubes, and other types, there are frequent descriptions. But these are brief, as a rule, and I do not concur in some of the conclusions. Therefore, I have not quoted at any length under such titles. Copper presents an extensive and almost new field, and Mr. Charles E. Brown has, therefore, made it one of the longest sections. But, while “The Stone Age” does contain many quotations of length, I have made all these a part of one general plan, and this leads up, as readers will observe, to the differentiation of the various culture-groups existing in America in very ancient times. And thus, towards the end of Volume II, one enters an entirely new field. There are opened to archæologists possibilities of future study—very important study, in fact. CHAPTER II PLANS FOR AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION There are something like three hundred museums or institutions in the United States that contain archæological collections. These exhibits range from more than a million objects, as in the case of the Smithsonian Institution, or Field Museum of Chicago, or the American Museum of Natural History, to private collections of one to ten thousand specimens each. I have roughly estimated the number of prehistoric artifacts available for study, or those of aboriginal manufacture that show little influence of European culture, at about eight million objects. Mr. Paul M. Rea, curator of the Charleston (South Carolina) Museum and secretary of the American Museums Association, reports to me by letter that seventy-eight museums have 991,974 specimens by count. This total does not include the larger museums, and forty-seven smaller ones have not reported. Mr. Rea states: “The following museums of importance have either not returned information or have failed to give the extent of their collections in figures: American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum, Peabody Museum (Cambridge), Peabody Museum (New Haven), University of Toronto, Canada.”