July, 191 2. Chinese Pottery. 9 



Ju-kua, in the early part of the thirteenth century. 1 Ancient remains 

 other than those just cited are of rare occurrence in the Philippines; 

 so I shall quote somewhat at length the very interesting account, given 

 by J ago r, of excavations in Ambos Camarines, Luzon. 



" In 185 1 , during the construction of a road a little beyond Libmanan, 

 at a place called Poro, a bed of shells was dug up under four feet of 

 mould, one hundred feet distant from the river. It consisted of Cyrenae 

 (C. suborbicularis, Busch.), a species of bivalve belonging to the family 

 of Cyclades which occurs only in warm waters, and is extraordinarily 

 abundant in the brackish waters of the Philippines. On the same 

 occasion, at the depth of from one and a half to three and a half feet, 

 were found numerous remains of the early inhabitants, skulls, ribs, bones 

 of men and animals, a child's thigh-bone inserted in a spiral of brass 

 wire, several stags' horns, beautifully formed dishes and vessels, some 

 of them painted, probably of Chinese origin; striped bracelets, of a 

 soft, gypseous, copper-red rock, glancing as if they were varnished ; small 

 copper knives, but no iron utensils ; and several broad flat stones bored 

 through the middle; besides a wedge of petrified wood, embedded in a 

 cleft branch of a tree. The place, which to this day may be easily 

 recognized in a hollow, might, by excavation systematically carried on, 

 yield many more interesting results. What was not immediately 

 useful was then and there destroyed, and the remainder dispersed. In 

 spite of every endeavor, I could obtain, through the kindness of Senor 

 Focifios in Naga, only one small vessel. Similar remains of more 

 primitive inhabitants have been found at the mouth of the Bigajo, not 

 far from Libmanan, in a shell-bed of the same kind; and an urn, with a 

 human skeleton, was found at the mouth of the Perlos, west of Sitio de 

 Poro, in 1840. 



"Mr. W. A. Franks, who had the kindness to examine the vessel, 

 inclines to the opinion that it is Chinese, and pronounces it to be of 

 very great antiquity, without, however, being able to determine its age 

 more exactly; and a learned Chinese of the Burlingame Embassy ex- 

 pressed himself to the same effect. He knew only of one article, now 

 in the British Museum, which was brought from Japan by Kaempfer, 

 the color, glazing and cracks in the glazing of which (craqueles) cor- 

 respond precisely with mine. 2 According to Kaempfer, the Japanese 



1 F. Hirth, Ancient Chinese Porcelain (Journal of the China Branch of the Royal 

 Asiatic Society, Vol. XXII, N. S., pp. 181-3, 1888). 



2 Referring to this paragraph Dr. C. H. Read of the British Museum says: "There 

 must be some mistake in Jagor's book. No such jar given by Kaempfer is in the 

 Museum, and I cannot understand my predecessor, Sir. A. W*. Franks, making such 

 a statement. I may mention that I knew Dr. Jagor intimately and regard him as 

 more than usually accurate." 



