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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



cult to follow ; but in spite of them the question remains a question 

 today, and undoubtedly will remain so until the spade of an archeolo- 

 gist shall clear it up. 



We worked about two hours in the morning and left this reputed 

 resting place of the august Emperor at lo a. m., arriving at Fou-shan 

 Hsien late in the afternoon. On the fourth, we made very little prog- 

 ress. The ground was wet, and there were many steep ascents and 

 descents. We covered about six miles in all and stopped at Hsiang- 

 shui-ho. On this day I picked up my first piece of red pottery of an 

 archaic character on a descending loess slope. 



I'n.. 134. — Supposed tomli of the Emperor \ao. iioin the southeast. 



The next day we started early, while the ground was still wet. The 

 road we followed lies deep down between loess cliffs. Such roads 

 make it convenient to observe the exposed surface of the loess. The 

 finding of the red pottery sherd was very encouraging and made me 

 look carefully all along the way. Not long after we started from 

 Hsiang-shui-ho, I began to see gray pottery sherds of the Chou and 

 Han periods. All of a sudden I discerned a piece of red pottery 

 decorated with black lying among the withered, wet grass. Then one 

 after another came into view as we traced them to their source. It 

 is a heap of earth about lo feet in height and cut down vertically on 

 one side to the public road. The upper surface is a long and narrow 

 strip. This piece of land is owned by the Li brothers, who most po- 

 litely received me and helped me with their spades to gather samples 

 of the painted sherds from the exposed surface of their mound. When 



