592 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
stone tablets, for the reason that this was easier than casting inscrip- 
tions in intaglio. 
Ts’ao Chung-ming says that bronze vessels buried in the earth for 
a thousand years became pure blue like the kingfisher, while those 
subject to the influence of water for a thousand years became clear 
green as the rind of a melon. My opinion is that where the soil is 
warm and moist vessels became blue and where the water is brackish 
they became green. It is also said that before a thousand years ves- 
sels may become blue or green, but not glossy; but I fear that this is 
not true. How can it be that vessels of a thousand years of age which 
are glossy, but on which the blue and green colors are not pure, are not 
properly classed as belonging to the three dynasties? Kao Shen-fu 
considered that where the metal was comparatively pure and without 
much alloy the vessels became blue, and that when the alloy was in 
larger proportion they became green. But the ancients were not 
niggardly in their expenditures, and how can it be thought that they 
preferred alloyed metals? Such statements are those of a blind man 
at a theater, and should be discounted. There are those also who 
maintain that vessels of a dark-brown color have not been preserved 
in open places, but have come from graves on hillsides or stone vaults 
where there is no dampness to cause the decaying corpses to influence 
the color of the metal, and this opinion is probably correct. 
The sound given out by ancient bronzes is clear, while that of 
modern pieces is confused and noisy. Ancient bronzes have no rank 
odor, except those which have been recently taken from the soil and 
still retain its smell. Other kinds are spurious. If rubbed briskly 
with the palm of the hand, a rank odor is given off. 
The ancients were not sparing of labor like the artisans of later 
degenerate times. For this reason the k’uan and chi of ancient 
bronzes were fine like hairs and were even, regular, and distinct 
without a trace of being blurred. The characters of the chi were 
rounding like the surface of inverted tiles and were uniform in depth, 
both when written large or small. The specimens preserved by me 
all have these characteristics, but I have seen those preserved by 
others which are different. If the inscriptions are somewhat blurred, 
such specimens are spurious, and the quality and color of the metal 
would also be incorrect. 
The best color of ancient bronzes, according to some persons, is 
dark brown, and in my opinion the worst is a leaden calor. Those 
which have red scales are better than the lead-colored ones, but the 
dark-brown color is still better. The dark-brown color is not so good 
as the green, nor the green as the blue, nor the blue as those which are 
iridescent (mercurial), or the iridescent as the black lacquered ones, 
which, however, have the fault of being easy to counterfeit. Such 
counterfeits can be readily detected, 
