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Rh On the 16th of June, 1908, in accordance with arrangement with Sir Purdon Clarke, Director, the replica was deposited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the City of New York, as a loan.

Although the replica is not yet the property of the museum, there is a probability that it may never leave its new abode again; but the fact should not be overlooked that all museums and universities of the world can now be supplied, if so desired, with plaster casts of the Nestorian tablet, casts which would not be more accurate, had they been taken from the original itself.



It is not a generally known fact that in North China, in the provinces of Shansi, Shensi, Kansu and Honan, thousands of Chinese families live all their lives in caves dug out of the Löss. This wonderful geological deposit is indeed the fortune of the peasant of North China. It yields two harvests a year, the first a wheat-crop, the second a crop of maize, millet and the like. And when the agriculturist seeks a home, he takes his spade or shovel and he digs for his wife, his children and himself, a cave in the soft Löss wall, which, although badly ventilated, gives him a safe shelter, cool in the