STONE IMPLEMENTS OF CEYLON. 123 



form in Ceylon is called the lunate or moon-shaped ; but there 

 are others, of which you will find specimens here to-day. One 

 shape well known in India appears to be missing in Ceylon. 

 On the othei hand, some of the lunates found by me seem to 

 be very much larger and thicker than any which I have heard 

 of elsewhere. More than this I do not feel inclined at piesent 

 to say. I intend sending specimens to Mr. Gatty and to the 

 British Museum, and hope to have their opmions in a few 

 months. I wish, however, to call your attention to the 

 extreme beauty and delicacy of many of the implements, 

 and to make one suggestion in that connection. As 1 said 

 before, there is great uncertainty as to the uses to which they 

 were put. Some think they were surgical and tattooing 

 lancets ; others that they were fish hooks ; others that they 

 were the implements of some domestic manufacture, such as 

 weaving or wool-carding ; others that they were the barbs of 

 harpoons, spears, and arrows. It is quite possible that they 

 were aU these and more. But another very important point 

 remains to be settled : Were the people who made these 

 exquisite Pigmies the same people who made the clumsy 

 scrapers and blades of Neolithic type ? Our first impulse is 

 to say that such a thing is impossible ; but consideration may 

 lead us to change our view. There are great gaps in the Neo- 

 lithic armoury. Aftei years of search I have not yet found 

 an axe, a saw, or a spear-head, and very few arrow-heads. It is 

 however inconceivable that savages could have dispensed 

 with spears and arrows in large quantities ; and admitting 

 this, one is at a loss to understand why they are not found in 

 the same numbers as in other lands. I grant that we are 

 stni only at the threshold of discovery, and I do not overlook 

 the possibility that the implements now wanting may yet be 

 found ; but I believe that some day it will be agreed, if not 

 proved, that the same people made both kinds of implements 

 continuously, and that the smaller and finer Pigmies were 

 used in numberless ways to supply the deficiencies of the 

 coarser and ruder Neolithic tools. 



