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[[underline]] Chapter IX. [[/underline]]  183.

well-defined sections, arranged symmetrically along an axis.  First, at the rear or western end was a small and nearly square chamber---hardly more, indeed, than a niche (which we found empty in both tombs); then a considerably larger central room; and lastly, on the east, still a third.  In Tomb II, this easternmost chamber had been divided into two apparently equal parts by a wall whose axis coincided with that of the structure as a whole.  The total width of this section had been somewhere about 16 feet (outside measurement) north and south; while that of the corresponding section of Tomb I was 9 feet.  The floors throughout were of brick, laid flat and side by side, their edges tou^[[c]]hing.
  Owing no doubt to the depredations of the brick-hunters, the eastern ends of both tombs had disappeared completely.  Hence in spite of considerable exploratory digging on our part, we were unable to determine either the nature of the entrances or even the total lengths of the vaults when intact.  What remained of Tomb I was 21 feet, 1 inch long; of Tomb II, 22 feet, 4 inches.
  The earth covering this part of the mound and filling the upper portions of both tombs was a dark uncompacted loam, without stratification and containing very few cultural objects.  Notably different in character was the soil underlying this upper layer.  About a foot in thickness and resting immediately on the brick floors of the vaults, it was distinctly paler in hue and far harder in consistency than the loam above it.  This lower stratum was composed of a succession of level, almost paper-thin layers alternately light gray and almost black in color.  Of these laminae, the dark ones were decidedly the thicker, and seemed to represent the seepage carried down into the vaults through the crevices between the mortarless bricks by the copious summer rains of the region; while the others had probably been laid down more slowly,