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#78

ansd Oct 11

ALL CORRESPONDENCE SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE SECRETARY

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Washington, U.S.A.

UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK
ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY
INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE

October 9, 1916.

Dear Mr. Freer:

I notice in the Washington Post of October 2 an item to the effect that the Chinese Government has concluded an agreement with the Siems-Carey Company, of St. Paul, Minn., financed by the American International Corporation, for the construction of more than 2,000 miles of railways. The lines specified will traverse the most productive parts of Shensi, Kansu, Hunan, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, and Chekiang.

The anthropologists of the Museum have intimated to me that it would be a good opportunity, either through American engineers, or American physicians and other employees, who will doubtless be connected with the enterprise, to obtain stone implements, pottery, and skeletal remains, which will doubtless be found in the course of the surveys and excavations, which will, in all probability, pass through old, possibly even pre-Chinese archeological sites and burials. This material is particularly desired as it is now quite evident that before the Chinese and during the earlier part of their history, much of the territory they now occupy was peopled by a race which bore extremely close analogies to,