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ty. Fan was in fact Tuan's agent, travelling frequently near Wu-an(武安) and Chang-te with an eye on all sorts of curios. When Fan sent the first lot of the inscribed bones to his master, Tuan was so excited that he offered 2 1/2 taels for each work on these bones. This of course set Fan on his heel; by various means he in turn induced the villagers to dig. This, according to the villagers, was the beginning of systematic plundering of this site.

Neither is the above merely a telltale of ignorant villagers, for informations from other sources seem to confirm this tradition. It is said that among Tuan Fang's great collection which has been on sale ever since his death, there are inscribed bones; this proves that the villager's story is, at least, not entirely unfounded. Be this as it may, Wang I-yung, however, must be considered, so far as the "oracle bones" are concerned, a greater collector, and the founder of a new science; for it is his collection which performed the real service of stimulating the impotent learned circle of China at the beginning of the 20th century and resulted in a series of brilliant treatises on ancient Chinese classics.

Wang I-yung began to collect only in 1900. Liu E(劉鶚) made the very clear in his preface to his book "Tieh-yün T'sang-k'uei"(鐵雲藏龜); he says:

"In the year Ken-tze(庚子, 1900), a dealer by the surname Fan with over hundred pieces of such fragments came to Peking. His Excellency Wang Wen-min(王文敏), I-yung(㦤禜), of Fu-shan(福山) saw them and was most delightfully excited with this discovery. He purchased them at a high figure. Later on, Mr. Chao Chih-chai(趙瓻齋) of Wei Hsien obtained several hundred pieces; he also sold them to Wen-min. But, not long after, the boxer trouble developed, Wen-min martyred his life. Two years later(1902), his son, Han-fu(翰甫), in order to pay the old debt of his father, sold this collection. The inscribed plastrons were the last to come out, amounting over thousand pieces. All these passed to me. At the same time, Fang Yao-yü(方藥雨) of Ting-hai(定海), who had in possession over three hundred pieces obtained from Fan, also passed them to me. In addition, Chao Chih-chai travelled for me in the neighborhood

Transcription Notes:
Reviewed Roman alphabet copy only.--janer