National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

they finally confirmed by the establishing of the puppet state to which they gave the misnomer Manchukuo.

The economic depression that at this time began to be felt all over the world found expression that autumn in the abandoning in many countries, including our own, of the gold standard. This cost the expedition many good dollars that might have been put to better use.

Especially Boxy nv sent me frequent and detailed reports of his field-work as palaeontologist and geologist; and they were always illustrated with sketch-maps and geological sections. By the side of the work in his own subjects he also devoted himself enthusiastically to the collection of archaeological objects and data; and on June 18th, 1931, he had the good fortune to make an archaeological discovery of the first rank: a new series of Buddhistic grotto-temples with images and paintings from T'ang time, comparable with the previously known Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, or Ch'ien-fo-tung, south-east of Tun-huang. Boil nc's caves, that by the local population are called Hsi-ch'ien-fo-tung, are situated 27 kilometers south-west of Tun-huang in the canyon of the Tang-ho. These caves were in part damaged by erosion, and many of them have probably disappeared without leaving a trace. But they were never so numerous as their famous neighbours, that were investigated especially by STEM and PELI,toT.1

On October 19th BERGMAN arrived in Peking, and MONTELI, left almost immediately afterwards. On November 11th he was at home in Stockholm.

On November 6th SÖDERBOM set off with our Ford Phaeton in the service of the Eurasia Co., on a trip to the Edsen-gol. He took with him, amongst other things, silver dollars for our fellows working in Kansu.

And finally, turning to Sinkiang, our headquarters in the old Russian bank in Urumchi was wound up with NoRUN's departure from the town for his new field of work in north-western Tibet, whence he was afterwards to travel to Peking via India. Meantime, Professor YUAN was organizing a caravan for a journey in the cold season eastwards through the deserts to his home in Peking. AMBOLT had left Urumchi already in the spring, travelling southward via Qara-shahs and then to Aqsu and along the dry course of the Khotan-darya. At the Mazar-tagh he had made an important geological discovery, finding marine fossils there. Now, in the autumn of 1931, he was carrying on his astronomical and geodetic researches in the Qaranghu-tagh south of Khotan.

It became increasingly clear that MONTELL and I must go to Chicago to clear up the business connected with the BENDIX temple. Mr BENDIX himself had expressed such a wish, and we therefore determined to return to China via America and Chicago this time.

1 Bom mr has since published a preliminary report »Newly Visited Western Caves at Tun-huang >» in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. I, 1936. F. B.

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