West Indian Stone-Implements. 119 
their main purpose, but with all such natural surfaces and 
curves of the shell as do not interfere with this use left 
untouched. Such artificial surfaces as are made are, how- 
ever, not produced by mere rough chipping or splintering, 
but are carefully ground and polished. A glance at 
any one of the three examples here figured of this com- 
monest type of shell implement will show justification for 
a familiar but convenient description of them as of the 
( shoe-horn type'. A moment's reflection will show that 
the concavity of one surface, at the cutting edge of the 
implement, must have been of distinct advantage to the 
use of such implements as adzes (picks). The small 
end, opposite to that at which is the cutting edge, 
naturally running to a point, seems to have been artifici- 
ally further sharpened, so as to allow of its use as a 
pointed drill or awl. In nearly all the examples in 
my possession this pointed end is abruptly broken off, 
as if by such use. 
The next most common type of shell implement seems 
to be that of which examples are represented in figures 
29, 30, 31, 32 (from Barbados), 33 and 34 (from Nevis). 
These seem to have been made of the thicker fragments 
of shell which admitted of sufficient shaving down for 
the more or less complete obliteration of the natural curve 
of the shell. These have accordingly been worked up 
into forms almost exactly corresponding to those of the 
ordinary wedge-shaped stone implements. Curiously 
enough one of these (fig. 29) bears a strong resemblance 
to the stone battle-axe blades of ' Scandinavian type' 
which have been described in an earlier part of this 
paper ; that is to say, the section would be, — roughly 
speaking, for one of the flat surfaces is not very flat — rcc- 
