West Indian Stone-Implements. 117 
sented by Mr. KlRTON toSirTHOMAS GRAHAM BRIGGS. 
The first is a pestle, of no very elaborate form, for the 
natural pebble has been only just sufficiently shaped to 
bring it to the required form. The second is a most 
beautiful and perfect little mortar, corresponding 
to the pestle. Most people know the imitation birds- 
nests made — as ornaments or paper-weights — of Cornish 
serpentine, Derbyshire spa, and similar material. This 
little mortar closely resembles one of these, and is finish- 
ed, inside and out, quite as perfectly. It is, however, 
very tiny ; the cavity is but a half inch deep and but one 
and a half inches in diameter at the top. Into this cavity, 
the small end of the pestle, which was, as I have said, 
found with the mortar, fits perfectly. 
This mortar, and, assuming that the two implements 
really do belong to each other, this pestle, can obviously 
not have been used for grinding or rubbing either maize 
or cassava, or any other such bulky substance. Possibly 
they were used, as is said to be customary among 
certain Brazilian tribes, as well as among the North Ameri- 
can Indians, for rubbing down the paints or dyes used by 
the owners to adorn either their persons or their weapons 
and utensils. The chief interest of this suggestion lies in 
the fact that it lends some evidence to the theory that 
these West Indian ( pounders' need not necessarily have 
been used for grinding corn (or any other food substance), 
and therefore throws some doubt upon the argument, 
sometimes suggested if not maintained, that because 
these pounders were owned by the earlier inhabitants of 
the West Indies, that therefore all these people used 
maize. 
Next in the collection, but unfortunately not admitting 
