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                    ST. PETERSBURG

CHINESE OBJECTS AT THE HERMITAGE[[Underlined]]   Although the Hermitage Museum at Petrograd is rich in European paintings and classical sculpture as well as in objects from the nearer Orient, it contains but a few isolated specimens bearing directly on the matter of this report. The only strictly Chinese objects which I found (with the exception of some splendid porcelains of the Ch'ing dynasty) were a small group of bronze mirrors evidently of Sung or late T'ang workmanship. 
The suggestive and interesting thing about these was the fact that they had been excavated in the Altai region and formed a new link in the slim chain of evidence concerning early Chinese intercourse with that part of Turkestan.
[[Underlined]] SIBERIAN AND MONGOL PARALLELS [[Underlined]]
Among the splendid gold ornaments of the treasure from tombs in Kirgiz-Siberia was one heavy gold collar, or solid necklace, of precisely the form and decoration of those which have been found in North Western Mongolia. This is no surprise from either the geographical or ethnological point of view, but it serves to point out that as soon as the School begins its labors in Mongolia we may expect to come across non-Chinese material which can be understood only in the light of results obtained by Russian scientists further North
[[underlined]] PROFESSOR SMYRNOFF [[Underlined]]
Professor Smyrnoff, Curator of the Oriental collections, was most courteous in showing the objects under his charge. He expressed keen interest in the plans of your Committee for founding an American School of Archaeology in Peking.