None of the original pagodas now exist, though the sites.on which the present day ones stand, in many cases, have been occupied by similar buildings from the time when these first came into vogue down to the present d Tt was during the last two dynasties in China, the Ming and the Ching (Manchu), that the greatest number of pagodas were built; but the one at' Lunghua actually antedates the earlier of these two periods by several hundred years.
According to the Shanghai Official Records, for directing his attention ita which the writer jected to Mr. M. ¥. Kwauk of the Whangpoo Conservancy, this pagoda was first built about the year 247 A.D., dur. ing the period of the Three King. }doms, when the Kingdom of Wu foccapied that part of China' which stretches from the southern bank fof the Yangtze southward to in-elude Fukien and westward as far jas Wuchang. In the year 694, dur-_ young building, from w fact it may be argued that centuries will pass before it too crumbles to the dust, and who is to say that it will not till be standing, a sentinel of the plains, when Shanghai and all it stands for are "one with inevah and Tyre."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.