'The ancient bone character indicate that the wild elephants were caught and domesticated, being use' before oxen and horses' to till tke: fields. The old form of a very com mon Chinese character Indicated liliand leading an elephant at worl Ht was the shoulder and thigh bones fof the elephant and. tortoise shells upon which they wrote their history, linking their day with ours. Besides making known certain historical faes, the bones were also used in divine. fon. After the characters were seribed, the bones were subjected heat, and the direction of the crack that followed indicated to them what should be done under certain cond!- tons.
We owe a very great deal to the men. who have tolled to ferret out the meanings of the bone characters. Little has yet. been written of tke recent excavations. Owing to the courtesy of Mr. Liang, and one or {wo of these associated with him, w have been permited to see with cur own cyps what must have happened those distant days.
the first place, we were greatly surprised {o note the length, breadth and depth of these old tombs. Tre {en larger and smaller tombs cover an area of nearly seven English acres}
'The depth in all cases is over forty feet. 'The typical ones are in the form of a cross. The length and' breadth are equal. The larger graves Jare twenty metres or something over
and they are approached from the four points of the compass, from the north, east and west by flights of earthen steps, and. from the south by a Tong easy incline. It is thought that the bodies were taken-down the incline from the south, while. the ong fights of steps from the other directions afforded. the moans for very spectacular ceremony.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.