Second Fogg Museum Expedition Now Preparing in Pekin--First Yielded Treasures of Gobi Art, Seen by Marco Polo

The second Fogg Museum archaeological expedition to Western China is now in Pekin, preparing for a long journey to the interior provinces by cart and camel. America has lagged behind in Asiatic research, and only now is undertaking to train young men in Asiatic study and to give them field work and opportunities of thorough research.

The first Fogg expedition, a preliminary scouting trip, ended last May. A brief account of this trip, which is a new field of work for the University; follows:

In April, 1923, Langdon Warner '03 resigned the directorship of the Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia to take up his duties as Fellow of the Fogg Museum for Research in Asia.

In the summer of 1923 Mr. Warner left for China, taking with him one of his assistants from the Pennsylvania Museum. H. H. F. Jayne '20, on leave of absence for a year. They went directly to Pekin, where they spent a month making the various preparations necessary for a trip into the interior.

With the necessary passports secured, money telegraphed ahead to post offices of the larger western cities, and with a letter to General Wu Pei Fu safely stowed in the dispatch box, the expedition left Pekin in August. It went to Cheng Chow on the Pekin-Hankow railroad, then west to the end of the railroad that will some day connect the coast with the western provinces.

General Wu received the travelers most courteously and insisted on giving them angered escort for the first part of their journey by cart. The escort left them at the border of the province of Honau? which at that was infested with bandits, and the party passed safely in the peaceful province of Shensi.

The first important discovery made by the expedition was a cave-chapel, dated at the sixth century. This was important because of the great carven elephants that stood at each corner of the central care pillar, and because of its situation on the trade route from India and the West.

The trade route from India to China led west of Tibet, since the country of Burma was hard on the traveler. It passed through the ancient province of Gandhara, where there is to be found a trace of the western culture left by Alexander and the traders who followed him. It then bent eastward through what is now Chinese Turkestan, and finally came out into the Kansu province.

The ruined city of Kara Khoto in the Gains desert was one of the expedition's objectives. The city, uninhabited now for some 400 years, is mentioned by Marco Polo as Edzina. The Fogg expedition made a map of the city and succeeded in bringing back from there some small frescos, a fine mirror of the Tang period, and several interesting fragments of broken pottery.

Langdon Warner went on to Tun Huang and spent ten days studying the caves which are situated there. Here are to be seen statues and paintings of the most brilliant periods in Chinese art.

The finds of the first expedition will be published by the Fogg Museum within the next few years.