CHALFANT: EARLY CHINESE WRITING oil 
from ink-rubbings of the specimens in his possession. Meanwhile some four hun- 
dred fragments were purchased by the writer for the Museum of the Royal Asiatic 
Society, Shanghai. A year later (1904-5) the remaining eighteen hundred frag- 
Fre. 10. Fie. 11. 
Fig. 10 is a fine specimen of ancient inscribed tortoise-shell, most of the symbols of which are intelligible, but the 
translation difficult owing to, the incompleteness of the inscription. (Actual size. ) 
Fig. 11. Inscribed bone fragment. The upper right two lines read: 7 LAXT Rl @h. (‘Technical Jan- 
guage of divination containing date of inquiry.) 
Originals of Figs. 10-11 in the Couling-Chalfant Collection, Shantung, China. (Actual size. ) 
ments were located, and, after some difficulty, were procured and are now preserved 
as private collections. It is unfortunate that the finders did not undertake to match 
the fragments before disposing of them, for it is an almost impossible task to do this 
Now, on account of the dispersal of the pieces. 
While it is a tradition among the Chinese that tortoises and sacrificial bones were 
once used in divination, yet, according to Liu T‘ie-Yiin, no one prior to himself had 
published any account of the discovery of such objects. He further records his 
opinion that the style of writing is older than that of any extant inscription. 
