1927-01-09_01pg01

Communication No 102

DEPARTMENT OF ANATOMY
PEKING UNION MEDICAL COLLEGE
PEKING, CHINA.

Sunday January 9th 1927

Dearest mater mine,
Another week has flown and now we are arrived at
AWGrabaus birthday - one hundred years less one month odd since Darwin
took his first peek at descending man! I am going out to AWGs tonight to
help celebrate at a surprize party for him - Adena is not feeling like it
so she will keep houes while Im away. They - Adena, hsia mei mei, Davy and
amah are busy taking down the tree in the drawingroom. I hate to se it go
Do you remember Kiplings "Track of lie"? Well call it a fairy story and
it resembles the track of my recent fiction on the dispersal of Primates.
About a month ago I had a review from a chap I do not know - a reviewer
on the staff of the Am Jour of Science - enclosing comp copies of his
review. Not a bad effort taking it by and large. Then last week arrived a
complimentary copy of "Nature" in which there was a very nice editorial
review of it and in another section of the number was my spiel on the
ChouKouTien discovery. The latter left here on Oct 24 last and was printed
in Natuer in its issue of Nov 20th - not a bad speed that. Then in the
same mail came a letter from Elliot Smith with a clipping of a note by
him in the London Times Nov 16 issue ending in a two paragraph quotation from my CKT
spiel. He said the note was his bot the headlines were not! He wrote it to
correct certain roumours that had spread apropos of a remark let fall
by Roy in his RoyGoegraph Lecture - what the latter was I dont know.
Then a letter from Keith saying good luck to you and remarking on the
interest aroused over the work being done here. Then one from Hrdlicka
in typical Hrdlickian vein but admitting reluctantly between the lines
that Asia might be what I had cracked it up to be but wanting further
news and confirmation. Altogether the two spiels have done their little
work finely and it is worth the risk I have taken in digressing into
fiction - I had a legitimate excuse and from where we sit just now it