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[[underline]] Chapter VIII. [[/underline]] 155. level). The clay ridge on which it stood extended north and south, and was broader than most of those composing the "badlands" east of the pond, ([[strikethrough]] (see page 152)), [[/strikethrough]] though otherwise similar to them. Much of the mound had been destroyed, in part through natural erosion, in part (especially on the north) by the brick-hunters of the previous autumn and perhaps of even earlier times. Evidence which we later noted suggests that originally it had been circular in plan, of sugarloaf shape, and with a probably diameter of about 75 feet and a height (measuring from its apparent base, not from the pond level) of between 20 and 25 feet. It had not been constructed of [[underline]] terre pisée [[/underline]], like the great imperial tumuli that we had lately seen in Shensi, but of earth loosely heaped together, and compacted only through natural agencies. For the greater part of a week we continued working at the Wang Fên Wa, with from 6 to 15 laborers, their number fluctuating with the exigencies of the rice-planting. As none of them would remain overnight at the mound, declaring that it was haunted, we hired a lame beggar to stay there as watchman during our absences; for we returned to town every evening at dusk. The soil composing the mound had of course been much disturbed. At first we found, in addition to the door stones already mentioned^[[,]] [[strikethrough]] (see page 153), [[/strikethrough]] only scattered fragments---no complete vessels---of the common coarse gray unglazed but often cord-marked ware that we had so often seen elsewhere; these had probably been in the earth heaped up to form the mound; for they disclosed few recent fractures and were quite unlike the specimens of undoubted Han funerary pottery that we found later. [[underline]] The Door-Stones. [[/underline]] The first objects that we cleared of earth were the members (of dressed but undecorated stone), broken or whole, that had composed the