国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

together contributions there. If, on the other hand, we got money without my needing to go after it I intended to set off for the interior at the end of September, in order to take advantage of the winter months for the crossing of Takla-makan.

In order to obviate the necessity of leaving Peking and the headquarters of the expedition in the search for funds I bethought me of VINCENT BENDIX'S promise that also in the sequel he would lend his support to the expedition. On July 26th I sent him a telegram in which I explained our rather critical situation. But when after the lapse of over five months the reply finally came it was a refusal.

THE PEKING MAN

Life in the scientific circles of Peking continued on the whole undisturbed by the uncertain political conditions; and now, just as on our first arrival in Peking, it was The Geological Survey of China that stood at the head of the Chinese scientific institutions. On July 3oth I took part in a meeting there, on which occasion skull No. 2 of Sinanthroius 5ekinensis was demonstrated. This, as also skull No. I, had been dug up near the village Chou-k'ou-tien by the young geologist W. C. PEI. We Swedes, especially, have reason to remind ourselves that it was Professor J. G. ANDERSSON who in 1921 began the investigations at Chou-k'ou-tien, about 4o kilometers south-west of Peking. Holes and caves in the limestone beds had in the course of time been filled up with various materials, including among other things miscellaneous bone-remains. As Professor ANDERSSON expected important discoveries at this place, Dr O. ZDANSKY was sent there to make a more thorough investigation. Among rich palaeontological material Dr ZDANSKY also found two teeth, of which one was that of an adult human being while the other belonged to a child. After exhaustive comparisons it was thought highly probable that the owners of these teeth were contemporary with the Piltdown Man discovered in England in 1912 and with Pithecanthropus erectus found in Java by Dr DUBOIS in 1891.

Early in 1927 Dr BIRGER BOH.IN came out from Sweden to continue the excavations at Chou-k'ou-tien, as I have already related; and his most prominent find of human fossils was made in the autumn of 1928, when, among debris he was sorting, he discovered half a human lower jaw with several teeth in position.

The most important discovery was made on December 2nd, 1929, when W. C. PEI excavated a beautifully preserved skull. In the summer of 193o the second skull was recovered in the Cenozoic Laboratory of the Geological Survey in Peking from the material collected in October 193o by Mr PEI.

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