262 TlMEHRI. 
these more elaborate forms are but a selection from a 
much larger number of simpler forms. 
The following extract from the above mentioned 
paper published in the Journal of the Anthropolo- 
gical Institute serves to show the real difference 
between the simpler and the more elaborate forms. ' If 
as many things seem to indicate, the habits of Indians 
have been the same for centuries, within each tribe, as, 
where not affected by European influence, they are at 
the present time, it is reasonable to look to modern habits 
for explanation of older habits now no longer in them- 
selves evident. Now, from my own experience among 
the various Indians of this part of South America, I know 
that in their many leisure hours these people often fashion 
highly ornamental implements and weapons, which they 
never actually use, except perhaps ceremonially, but keep 
them proudly at home, while they take to the fields with 
them implements the production of which has cost less 
labour.' This, I think, is the explanation of the fact that 
West Indian stone-implements differ so much in the 
more or less elaborateness of their finish. Provisionally, 
and until this theory of the difference between the two 
types is displaced, it will be convenient to speak of the 
more elaborate, as ornamental forms, of the others, as 
practical forms.* 
* It is perhaps as well to note, once for all, that the stone- 
implements of the West Indies are, as far as I know, always of 
that highly finished character which in the case of European imple- 
ments, is called neolithic. This apparent absence from the West 
Indies, as from most newer countries, of stone-implements of the class, 
occurring in Europe and other older countries, called paleolithic is 
somewhat irreconcilable with the commonly accepted theory that a 
paleolithic period everywhere necessarily preceded a neolithic period. 
The difficulty does not seem fully removed by the hypothesis that the 
newer countries have not been sufficiently searched for discovery of 
paleolithic implements. 
