Viewing page 103 of 234

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

                                                         90
will permit. When they cannot be replaced, they should be
housed on or near the spot in such a manner as to be of the
most value to students and visitors.
     If the building contained objects of interest unconnected
with its actual structure, these too should be restored as
nearly as possible to their original positions. If they are
not of a character or in proper condition to be thus replaced,
they should be housed in or near the ruin after the manner of
a museum collection.
    The precincts should be adequately guarded against
vandalism, but accessible to students and other visitors.
    Since this report is confidential in character, I may
give here certain criticisms of the French work at Angkor
without laying myself open to the charge of a breach of
hospitality. In brief my comments would be as follows.
    Their conservative restoration is admirable and never
carried too far.
    Although valuable arch^[[a]]eological material was known to
exist under and near the foundations, excavation was post-
poned and the opportunity lost for recovering it when the
buildings were strengthened from below.
    There is no museum on or near the spot, and no method
of arranging or protecting the hundreds of thousands of
sculptures which are being found near the ruins, and of
which the original positions can never be determined. Thou-
sands of sculptures, in more or less fragmentary condition,
but still invaluable to the student of art, are shifted al-
most every day by the native gatherers of bat's dung, and are
piled in heaps over which the visitor must scramble in his