1899.] 
Section II.—Block Prints. 
G3 
script books written on Khotanese paper (variety Ilia), has been 
solved. In January 1898 I showed these books to Sir Charles J. Lyall, 
and he agreed with me that the script seemed to resemble Pahlavi and to 
be in verse. In December last, when I had an opportunity of showing 
them to Dr. Aurel Stein, who has made Iranian scripts and languages 
a special study, he at once recognized the Pahlavi script in verse. He 
even read some portions of it, though, of course, as will be readily 
understood by those who know the difficulties of reading unknown texts 
in Pahlavi, it was not possible for him, at such short notice, to determine 
what the purport of the text might be. 
Finally to add a minor point, book No. VI of the Second Set, is a 
mere fragment. One cannot easily conceive why a forger should sell a 
portion of a forged book of a kind, of which he could with comparative 
ease fabricate a large number of complete copies ; while it is perfectly 
natural that he should dispose of a genuine old book, even if he had 
found or secured only a portion of it. 
To sum up, the conclusion to which, with the present information, 
I have come, is that the scripts are genuine; and that most, if not all, 
of the block-prints in the Collection also are genuine antiquities ; and 
that if any are forgeries, they can only be duplicates of others which are 
genuine, and must be found among the books of M. 8 and M. 9 which 
are written on the IHd variety of Khotanese paper. By duplicates, I 
do not mean such in point of size or variety of paper, but with reference 
to the arrangement of the impressions of the block, or blocks, on the 
pages. The determination of whether or not there are any such 
duplicates in the British Collection, must remain over for a future 
opportunity of examination of the block-prints. 
In addition to the block-printed text, two books (No. IV of the 
Written Legends. Fi . rst Set and No ' 111 of the Secoad Set ) con ‘ 
tain additional small legends, inserted in blank 
intervals between the repetitions of the text. Their letters are larger 
than, and their direction sometimes different from, that of the surround¬ 
ing text. They have every appearance of not being printed but written 
by hand. Their shape is irregular, and their ink is darker and does not 
look as if imprinted from type. 
On the whole the block-print books are in a fairly good state of 
preservation. Some of them are much torn 
or otherwise damaged. Many of them bear 
stains of oil or other fatty substance; some 
also seem to have been exposed to the action of fire or water, as their 
leaves are found more or less strongly singed or rotten. 
State of 
Preservation. 
