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[[underlined]] Appendix III. [[/underlined]] 3.

eventually adopted as standard by most if not all of the Bronze Age peoples of the Occident, seems never to have become stabilized, if indeed it was ever grasped, in ancient China.
It has been suggested that the metals used in northern China during its Bronze Age may have been derived from deposits which once existed in that region itself but which have long since been worked out. Of this, however, we have no evidence of any kind, and in the nature of the case none is ever likely to be found.
A word of caution is perhaps desirable here. A deficiency of tin in any particular Chinese bronze object must not be regarded as in itself suggesting a very early date for that object---much less, as indicating the former existence of a [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] "Copper Age" in China. It is, on the contrary, simply a sign of a local and temporary shortage of tin; for bronze is easier to melt and cast than is copper alone, and the resulting product is harder and, in the case of weapons, will take and hold a better edge.
In view of such facts as the foregoing, it becomes of extreme importance for us to subject to detailed analysis as many specimens as possible both of finished Chinese bronze objects and also of the copper ores produced in regions accessible to the spots where such articles have been found. Especially should this be done in the case of notably early examples of both objects and ores, the precise localities concerned being in all cases carefully noted.
For the accumulated results of such analyses, collated and tabulated, will in no long time provide us with material for the compilation of a definitive corpus, of the composition of ancient Chinese bronzes on the one hand and of the character of the copper, lead, and tin ores from various areas on the other. In this way it should become possible to