To: Erma Smythe

June 18, 1924

Dear little wife:-
Haven't got much to do today. Gave the studes some geology yesterday and today Tenil has them out on mining. Monday it rained all afternoon though getting a line on the local geology. You would have laughed to see me wandering over the hills with a paper umbrella to keep off the rain. These Chinese umbrellas are good too, oiled paper. it cost me 80 cents mex.

Tang shan is a coal mining camp located mear the coast east of Peking. It is the place where H. Hoover made his big reputation. Besides the coal they have a large brick and tile plant here and a Chinese concern has a large cement plant. We saw the latter yesterday.

There are several small mining camps around here which we will visit in the next few days. Saturday we will go up to Ching wong too, north of the wall in Manchuria. The rest of the trip will be in Manchuria, with our headquarters at Mukden.

We have a good place to stay here, the resthouse run by the Kailan mining Co. Good rooms and good meals. The students of course do not stay here as this is too expensive for them.

The trip will be over July 8, when we dismiss at Mukden. I expect to stop off a day at Peitaiho on the way back to see the Ball's. We have four invitations to visit at Peitaiho, I mean for you and me. Rather think we will go up there a few days if we get back from Shanghai in time.

By the way when you come I wish you would get half a dozen good new Victor dance records for the Balls as they are hard to get out here, you can get them without much difficulty.

Before you reach Shanghai you will be given a customs declaration to make out. All you need to do is to declare everything as personal effects.

Do you know I am counting the days till I see you in Shanghai on Aug. 15th?

By now you should have received two drafts from me, one for $350.00 sent about June 1 and another for $125.00 which I left with Alec to send Monday after I left on this trip. As I got my check early I mailed a draft rather than cable the money July 1 as I had intended.

With lots of love,
Your husband,
Donald