West Indian Stone-Implements. 105 
The stone series, in common with others of a similar 
kind, has one, and, as far as I know, only one draw- 
back. It consists, as far as can be ascertained, of imple- 
ments found singly, or at any rate in very small numbers; 
nor do the exact localities and conditions under which 
these were found seem to have been recorded. The scien- 
tific value of such singly found, unhistoried implements, 
most of them ' surface-implements' i.e. found scattered 
singly on, or just under, the soil, is of course far less than 
that of implements from some find, i.e. from some one spot, 
be it site of old dwelling-place, battle-field, or of implement 
manufacture, where large numbers of implements 
occur together. In the latter case light is thrown on 
each implement of the find by all the others found 
with it ; but in the former case the history and use of 
each implement has to be read, if read it can 
be, merely from itself — it is, as it were, a single 
sentence to be construed without sight of the context. 
Yet the value of surface implements is of course consi- 
derable ; and this is especially the case when, as in the 
collection now under consideration, they belong to the 
highly elaborated so-called Carib class, of which it is un- 
likely that any large 'find' will ever be made. For, 
though there can, I think, be no doubt that the makers, 
whoever they were, of these ' Carib' implements had 
carried the art of working stone to an unusual degree, 
and that they naturally used this unusual skill of theirs 
in making all their implements, yet it is almost im- 
possible that they can have made any very large number 
of the more elaborate, more ornamented, implements 
which are especially typical of Carib workmanship ; and 
it is most unlikely that any one man qi them, any one 

