Show CHINAS HOLY PLACES chinas cainas shrines including those in the touch much discussed shantung are described in the following communication to the alie national geographic society by frederick mccormick coleridge could not have selected a phrase more apt than stately pleasure dome had lie he intended to call attention to the best known form in chinese architecture like so much of the wrought beauty of china such as it iq still seen in parks and gardens pagodas are the work of the Budd his hurch almost exclusively the mot most beautiful specimens are in the hie yingtse valley where pagodas are most numerous every important chinese nod and manchurian Manc hurlan city is garlanded N w ith them from the file walls of lie ie king icing a doben pagodas and towers may be counted within the city and with a good glass half a dozen famous ones may lie seen rising from the surrounding plain pagodas range in height from 20 to more than feet and are of various shapes round square hexagonal octagonal etc they always have tin an odd number of stories ranging usually front from seven to nine and sometimes possessing 11 and even 13 the chinese have appropriated the pagoda as a counterpoise to evil and used it subject to their rules of geometry at the city of tung in the peking plain a region in past years visited by earthquakes there Is a prominent pagoda which at one time lad had more than 1000 bronze bells suspended from its cornices cornicks cor nices most of which lire are still in place the people have this story as to its construction A water waler fowl lues ines underground at this place and when he shakes his tall it causes earthquakes rs located the file end of ills his tall and the pagoda was built on it to hold it down at the file same time dine tills this did not prevent the water fowl from winking ills his eye hat but a as its ills eyelids have not beer been accurately cura tely located a second pagoda has not cot yet been built As a result trem bilings of the earth still occur the vender inspired in the breast of the traveler who visits chinas cainas vast remains of abandoned capitals extensive sive temples ranged in successive courts nit and on terraces of mountains its pagodas odas pallous pal lous bridges and canals is equaled by the awe inspired by the silent splendor of the tombs of chinas cainas emperors the tombs ol of the lie kings of the six kingdoms in shantung though now dow only earthen pyramids terraced with little fields have the air 0 aa h pyramids of deyot |