There are no images of any kind connected with the temple or the worship, the only offerings being a bullock, the various productions of the soil, and a cylindrical piece of jade about a foot long, formerly used as a symbol of sovereignty. Twelve bundles of cloth are offered to Heaven, and only one to each of the emperors, and to the sun and moon. The bullocks must be two years old, the best of their kind, without blemish, and while they were formerly killed by the Emperor they are now slaughtered by an official appointed for that purpose. The covered altar is, I think, the most beautiful piece of architecture in China. It is smaller than the one already described but has erected upon it a lofty, circular triple-roofed temple ninety-nine feet in height, roofed with blue tiles, the eaves painted in brilliant colours and protected from the birds by a wire netting. In the centre, immediately in front of the altar, is a circular stone, as in the open altar. The ceiling is covered with gilded dragons in high relief, and the whole is supported by immense pillars. It was this building that was struck by lightning in 1890, but it was restored during the ten years that followed. Being made the camp of the British during the occupation of 1900, it received some small injuries from curio seekers, but none of any consequence. The Sikh soldiers who died during this period were cremated in the furnace connected with the open altar. The Chinese have been an agricultural people for thirty centuries or more, and this characteristic is embodied in the Temple of Agriculture, which occupies a park of not less than three hundred and twenty acres of city property opposite the Temple of Heaven. It has four great altars, with their adjacent halls, to the spirits of Heaven, Earth, the Year, and the Ancestral Husbandman, Shen Nung, to whom the temple is dedicated. It was used as the camp of the American soldiers in 1900, and was well cared for. At one time some of the soldiers upset one of the urns, and when it was reported to the officer in command, the whole company was called out and the urn properly replaced, after which the men were lectured on the matter of injuring any property belonging to the temple.