458 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
hanging the farther bank and evidently built of material taken from 
the stream bed, as it contained many shells and waterworn pebbles; 
I noticed also a good many potsherds. Its southern end we could 
not see owing to a fold in the ground; but to the north we could 
trace it for a long distance; turning at length to the west, it remained 
in sight most of the way to Hsin-chéng Hsien. The people there- 
about, questioned as to the origin of this really gigantic earthwork, 
could tell us nothing save that it dated back to the days of Yao and 
Shun. No doubt a search in the local or provincial records would 
throw light upon the subject. 
Hsin-chéng Hsien itself we found picturesquely seated upon a 
plateau bordered on the east by a small but deep old torrent bed, now 
dry, and on the south, at a little distance, by the waters of a pleasant 
stream large enough to be navigable by boats of good size. The 
present city wall, of earth faced on the outside with burnt brick, 
winds along the brink of this plateau. It was just within the south- 
eastern corner of the city, we learned, that the discovery had been 
made. The ground at this point is higher than elsewhere, and must, 
before the wall was built, have commanded a splendid view over 
the river and the picturesque, undulating country to the south and 
southeast. 
Entering the city by the east gate, we followed a sunken road run- 
ning along the base of the wall, first to the south and then bending 
toward the west, until the presence of a crowd of sightseers told us 
that we had reached the scene of the discovery. It was quite clear 
why the finding had been a chance one. There was no sign on the 
surface of anything like a burial mound. It was only when I 
mounted the city wall, by a zigzag path up the sloping inner face ~ 
of earth, that I was able to see, in the bank bordering the farther side 
of the sunken road beneath me, indications of the contours of a 
low mound. It seems probable to me, indeed, that the present city 
wall cuts across the southern edge of what at one time must have been 
a tumulus of no small size. This had, however, in the lapse of ages, 
been so eroded and leveled off and ploughed over, while the hollows 
roundabout had been so filled in with the downwashing detritus, that 
all trace and memory of it had been lost long ago. 
The original discovery was entirely by chance. A certain Mr. Li, 
whom I met later and talked with, was sinking a well in a field of 
his, close by his home, when the workmen came upon a number 
of bronze vessels, some of which he sold to the locai dealers in 
antiques. Doubt appears to exist as to how much of the whole find 
was uncovered by Mr. Li before the military authorities at Chéng 
Chow heard of it, took possession of the premises, seized the vessels 
already disposed of, and started in to dig for more. But whoever 
