Stone Implements in Later itic formations. 25 



specimens however of these Implements retain their sharp 

 thin edges so perfectly and the irregularities of the drippings 

 are so fresh that it is evident they can have been drifted 

 only a very short distance, or not at all. With regard to such 

 Implements it appears more reasonable to ascribe their pre- 

 sence to other agencies. What these other agencies may 

 have been is as yet quite unknown, and in the absence of 

 any evidence bearing on the subject all attempts to explain 

 the occurrence in places of great numbers of perfectly pre- 

 served Implements must be purely hypothetical. 



The most probable hypothesis appears to be that these 

 perfectly preserved Implements owe their positions to human 

 agency, for we cannot conceive of any other power distri- 

 buting them over the bed of the sea, the action of rapid and 

 strong currents and the carrying power of ice being inad- 

 missible in these cases. 



The next step in the hypothesis is to explain how human 

 agency may reasonably be supposed to have been instru- 

 mental, and. the question now presents itself Were the 

 shingly mud-banks which now constitute the laterite beds 

 (more especially those lying between the present Narnave- 

 ram and Gorteliar rivers, to the North of the former river 

 and at the North end of the Red Hills laterite area) perma- 

 nently below the moderately deep sea of that period or were 

 they left partially or entirely uncovered by the ebb of the 

 tide ? Unfortunately the evidence as yet obtained does not 

 suffice to answer this question* 



If the former condition of moderately deep water is sup- 

 posed to have prevailed; recourse must be had to the sup- 

 position that the Implement-makers were accustomed to go 

 out to sea in canoes or on logs of wood tied together, like 

 the Catamarans now in use air along the Coromandel Coast; 



4 



