OCCURRENCE OF PIGMY IMPLEMENTS IN CEYLON. 59 
quantity, and the implements, I believe, furnish another in 
quality ; for I have in my collection stones of a beauty of 
workmanship and material such as I have never heard of 
elsewhere. 
It was a disappointment to me that no remains were 
discoverable except the imperishable quartz and chert. I 
found no pottery, bone, horn, ivory, or wood, except innumer- 
able fragments of charcoal from ancient camp fires. The 
last has however some significance, as proving that these 
ancient hunters, who were almost certainly the ancestors of 
our Veddas, were acquainted with fire ; and in addition it 
seems to me to indicate that their remains are not of a very 
remote date, for otherwise the charcoal embedded in porous 
soil would have been absorbed and have left no trace behind. 
The freshness of the material and workmanship also points to 
a period which may be described as neolithic rather than 
paleolithic, in so far as these words have any meaning in 
Ceylon. The cap of earth overlying the remains was a stiff, 
reddish, sandy loam, retentive of moisture and free from 
stones ; very occasionally it contained a chip of quartz or a 
fragment of charcoal. Beneath it extended the layer of 
chips, implements, and charcoal, rarely exceeding two inches 
in thickness and mixed with coarser grit and gravel which 
the insects and worms had failed to eject. The fragments of 
quartz are frequently spotted with a deposit of iron oxide, 
which can only be removed by scraping with a knife. Under 
the chips came undisturbed yellowish decayed gneiss of which 
the body of the hill is composed. The richest deposits of 
implements were always nearest the top, where I have recovered 
as many as eighty in a day, though the thickest layer of chips 
was generally a little way down the hill. Of the two slopes, 
the eastward was very much more prolific than the westward, 
and had a thicker coating of earth. The deposit was termi-. 
nated on the ridge at the north-eastern end by an outcrop 
of gneiss, at the south-western by a gradual rise, where 
the layer became thinner and ran out in bands till it ended 
altogether. 
_ Ihave dealt at some length with the Church Hill, because 
it was by far the richest ground examined ; but the other 
