REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS. 
15 
cities of Chinese Turkestan, and much more, of a destructive character, by others. 
To the north we must cross the great deserts and steppes to reach in Siberia the 
nearest systematic excavations of Radloff and others. 
In Persia, M. J. de Morgan has for several }-ears been conducting a tlioroughh- 
scientific investigation at several points, and especially at Susa, where he has alread^■ 
obtained results of the greatest interest. The acropolis of Susa is 105 feet high. 
M. de Morgan's preliminary tunnels, run into the hill at different levels, showed it 
to be composed of made earth from the base upward. Stone implements and 
potter)- abounded up to 36 feet from the top. The potter\- impro\-cd from below 
up, and among the fragments he recognized a variety- belonging to a grouj) peculiar 
to Egj-pt, Syria, Cyprus, and most of Asia Minor, but not known from Mesopo- 
tamia. De Morgan had found this in predynastic tombs in Eg>pt, and ascribed it 
to a period before the eighteenth century B. C. At 45 feet below the top he 
found tablets 'and cylinders with cuneiform inscriptions which Scheil considers as 
belonging to a period before the fortieth century B. C. 
M. de Morgan asks : " If the refined civilizations of the past 6,000 years, with 
their great structures and fortifications, have left only 45 feet of debris, how many 
centuries nuist it ha\e required to accumulate the lower 60 feet, when man used 
more simple materials in the construction of his abodes? " 
The thickness of made earth in the abandoned sites of Turkesbxu is sufficient 
to give reason for expecting evidences of ver>- long continued occupation. The 
dr)-ness of the climate makes possible the preser\'ation of an\- traces of written or 
incised documents that may have existed. Excavation conducted with the idea 
that e\er>thing met with — the earth itself, the character, position, and a.ssociation 
of fragments — is part of history, can not fail to be most fruitful in results. 
lations of Ancient Samarkand. 
