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    Taking with me as guide a junk seller of Changte, one of the agents of a Peking curio shop, I went to Shiao Tun and in a few minutes was surrounded by most of the population of the little hamlet anxious to sell fragments of inscribed bones dug up near their houses. I purchased over a thousand small specimens for about a dollar and then was able to persuade the people to show me the source of supply.
[[Underline]]INSCRIBED BONE[[/underline]]This proved to be a twelve foot trench [[underline]]FOUND IN SITU[[/underline]] 
seven feet two inches deep at the lowest corner. The trench showed, in cross section, its full depth of culture strata disturbed in the ordinary fashion but with no signs of later intrusion. There was a total absences of the finely laminated strata common in this loess country. From the wall of the trench at a depth of seven feet two inches from the present surface of the ground, I removed charcoal. At a depth of six feet eight inches from the same level, on the South wall of the trench I found one small bone fragment [[Underline]] in situ [[/underline]]. It was uninscribed, but showed a patina and consistency identical with the inscribed specimens which I had purchased. Near this, and about two inches from the vertical surface at the same height I extracted a second fragment of bone inscribed.
       Further attempts at excavation with my pen-knife proving futile^[[,]] I returned to Changte well satisfied with having established beyond a doubt the original position of one incised bone fragment. Later examination of my finds and purchases showed about sixty specimens containing traces of red pigment in the incisions--a fact not hitherto remarked by students of oracle bones.
     I may add here that I do not present the specimens purchased