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[[underline]] Chapter XIII. [[/underline]] 282. at the same time sturdy enough to stand practical use in combat, appeared unlikely to have been made of any other material. Later, however, after our return to Perking, I purchased at ^[[insertion]] ^[[an]] [[/insertion]] antique-shop there a bronze point which seems to throw light on this particular problem. Its exact provenience I was unable to learn, but it was almost certainly northern Chinese; since objects of such slight intrinsic value rarely travel far from the places where they are found [[strikethrough]] ; [[/strikethrough]] ^[[,]] and such bronze points are typically northern Chinese articles. Our Peking point is larger than any of those which we saw at Kuei-hua, and it may therefore be in reality an ancient Chinese lancepoint while the others belong to javelins or darts. It too has similar hollow central cone of bronze from whose sides the blade projects in the form of two opposite flanges with beveled edges, still quite keen (Pl. 39, Fig. 2, center). Its total length is however almost double that of the Kuei-hua ones, being 23 [[underline]] cm. [[/underline]] , while the m^[[a]]ximal width of its blade, near its base, is 3.5 [[underline]] cm. [[/underline]] The (inside) diameter of its socket, at its mouth, is 2.4 [[underline]] cm. [[/underline]] , so that it is obviously meant for fixing on a considerably thicker and (inferentially) longer shaft. Now this specimen, unlike the ones that we saw at Kuei-hua Ch'ĂȘng, had inside it, preserved by the salts of copper in the metal, what was pretty surely a surviving fragment of the original wooden shaft; for it had been carefully tapered to fit the above-mentioned conical hollow interior of the socket, almost to its very tip. Upon examination, this bit of wood proved to belong to some member of the "white-oak" group. [[superscript]] (257) [[/superscript]] It ------------------------- [[superscript]] (257) [[/superscript]] Mr. W. N. Watkins, wood technologist at the Smithsonian Institution, who kindly undertook the identification for me, tells me that the fragment most nearly resembles a sample of wood in the collections of the U. S. National Museum, from [[underline]] Quercus aliena [[/underline]] ---a northern Chinese form. -------------------------------- seems a safe and justifiable inference that the same (or some closely
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[[insertion]] text [[/insertion]] indicates insertion made to text, ^[[text]] indicates text is hand written.