LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of V CALIFORNIA EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. REPORT OF PROGRESS YESSO GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS 1875, SEVEN COAL SURVEY REPORTS. BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF (1 EULOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. TOKKF : PUBLISHED BY TBTE KAITAKUSEI. 1877. - EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY CON T E N T S . PAGE l!i;r<>i;T OF DAILY PROGRESS, 1875 1 Scope 2 Visit to Senclai Bay 3 Topographical features 4 Geology 5 Shiogama 6 "Petrified pine" 7 Ancient salt kettles 7 Population, commerce, school, occupations 7 Hakodate 8 Commerce of Hakodate 9 Hakodate to Mori 9 New Road 10 Yesso horses 11 Mori to Yamukushinai 11 Washinoki new oil wells 11 Yamukushinai oil exposures 13 Yamukushinai to Oshamambe 13 Oshamambe to Kuromatsunai 14 Coal mining in Yesso 14 Mode of granting coal privileges 15 Hitherto 15 Leasing better than selling 15 Nova Scotia and United States customs 16 Defects of Nova Scotia rules 17 Best plan for Yesso 17 Mining by foreigners in Japan 19 Kuromatsunai to Iwanai 20 Road mending 20 Kayanoma coal mines 21 Faults 21 Reduced mining force. 21 Identity of coal beds 22 Future mining ,., 22 344000 IV PAGE Kayanoma to Osboro 23 Iwanai breakwater 23 Skibui breakwater 25 Iwanai steam tug 25 New road from Rubeshibe 26 Oshoro to Zenibako 27 Zenibako to Sapporo 28 New immigrants 28 Compact village 29 Back lands 29 Land speculation 30 Land taxing 30 Road taxes 31 Taxes generally 31 Sapporo 32 Increasing prosperity 32 New schools 32 Play grounds 32 Surroundings 33 Size 33 Family system 33 Location in Sapporo or Yedo 34 Advantage of giving up these schools 34 Canal head gate 35 Toyohira bridge 36 Saw mills 37 Private lumbering 38 Amount of timber in Yesso 39 Government farms 40 Acclimatising 41 Sapporo farming 41 Horse power 41 Chimneys 42 Foreign architecture 42 Road mending 42 Fencing 43 Report and map making 43 Hiragishhnura bog iron ore 45 Nearer deposit 45 Topography and geology 45 Quality 46 Quantity 46 Further deposit 47 Sapporo to Horumuibuto , , 48 PAGE Horumuibuto 48 Topography 49 Height of floods 50 Bibaibuto 50 Topography 50 Ponds 52 Rivers without outlets* 52 Meridian determination -. 53 Trip to the Ikushibets and back 53 Great swamps 55 Amount of timber 55 Farming land 56 Drainage t 56 Takabatake's road 56 Railroad building 57 Survey from Horumuibuto to Poronai 58 Poronaibuto 58 Office work 58 Coal opening 59 Nuppaomanai coals 60 Staking of railroad line, coal opening, office work 61 Railroad line from Poronai to Horumuibuto 64 Time taken for the survey 66 Desirableness of the survey 67 Cost of railroad 68 Horses and steam 68 Cost of carrying coal 69 Poronai and Kayanoma 69 Horse roads 71 Oyafuru bog iron ore 72 Utsunai bog iron ore 73 Banuaguro bog iron ore 74 Bannaguro to Sapporo 74 New road 74 Sapporo to Hakodate 75 Pumice plain 75 Tokarumui (Shinmororan) 75 Otarunai and Ishcari.*. 76 New road 76 Aino customs , , 77 Yesso animals 78 Hakodate to Yedo 79 Assistants ,, ,80 VI PAGE MAKTJMBETS COAL FIELD 81 1. Situation 83 2. Lay of the land 84 3. Geology 84 Structure 84 Rocks and section 85 4. Coal 89 Exposures and mines 89 Outcrops of workable beds 89 Amount of workable coal 90 5. Shipment 91 6. Map 93 SANKEBIBAI AN i> NATE COAL SURVEY 97 1. Situation 97 2. Lay of the land 98 3. Geology 98 Structure 98 Rocks and main section 99 Epanaomap section 101 4. Coal 103 Workable beds 103 Outcrops 1 03 Exposures 104 Amount 104 5. Shipment 105 ^6. Map 105 BIBAI COAL SURVEY 109 1. Situation -. Ill 2. Lay of the land Ill 3. Geology 112 Structure 112 Rocks and section 113 4. Coal 124 Workable beds 124 Outcrops 124 Quantity 125 -uipment 126 ^6. Map J'27 XUPPAOMANAI COAL SURVEY 126 1. Situation 131 2. Lay of the land 132 3. Geology 132 Structure 132 Rocks and section , ,,133 VII PAGE 4. Coal 139 Workable beds 139 Outcrops 141 Quantity 141 5. Shipment 143 6. Maps 144 Nuppaomanai 144 Kawanai to the Ishcari 145 PORONAI COAL SUEVEY 147 1. Situation 149 2. Layoftheland 150 3. Geology 150 Structure 150 Rocks afldsection 151 4. Coal 157 Workable beds 158 Assays and Analyses 158 Identity of beds 159 Tables 160 Outcrops 161 Quantity 161 5. Shipment 164 6. Maps 165 Coal survey 165 Railroad survey 167 HStap 167 Profile section '. 167 ICHIKISHIRI COAL SURVEY 169 1. Situation 171 2. Layoftheland .- 172 3. Geology 172 Structure 172 Coal bearing rocks 172 Toshibets group 173 4. Coal 174 Workable beds 174 Outcrops 174 Amount 175 5. Shipment 177 6. Map 178 KAYANOMA COAL FIELD 181 1. Situation 183 2. Lay of land 184 VIII PAGE 3. Geology 185 Structure 185 Rocks and Section 186 Certain coal exposures 191 Tamagawa No. 3 191 HanibaNo. .3 192 Onkosawa No. 5 192 Miclzunukishiki No. 1 192 Honshiki 192 Honshiki 193 Kosawa No. 1 193 OsawaNo. 2 193 HarabaNo. 4 194 Onkosawa No. 3 194 Onkosawa No. 1 194 Kosawa No. 2 195 Takarasawa No. 3 195 HanibaNo. 5 196 Chatsunai, Shimonosawa No. 1 196 4. Coal 196 Workable beds 196 Assays and Analyses 196 Identity of beds 197 Tables 198 Quality of coal 200 Outcrops 200 Amount 200 Amount already mined 203 Present mines 204 Future mining 205 5. Shipment 206 Tramroads 206 Shibui harbor improvement 207 Coal of Chatsunai valley 208 Railroad to Iwanai 208 Harbor at Horikap 209 6. Maps 209 Coal field 209 Hydrographic map 210 TABLE OF ERRATA. SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT ERRATA. \ge 5, line 14 from bottom, for : are, read : we. 6, 14 , to to be. 6, 1 , but but it. 7, ,, 11 ,, , cauldrons cauldrons. i 18, ,, G ,, , secrue secure. , 29, G , to at. , 39, ,, 5 from bottom, , case ease. , 74, ,, 8 , diameter thickness. , 91, 13 , Shipments Shipment. , 104, ,, 3 from bottom, , 3,500,000 1,800,000. , 10(>, ,, 8 , level level ; and 1-20, 15... for the shape of the coal bed by similar but broken lines one hundred feet apart in level. pniewts read : shipment. SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT ERRATA IN B.S.L/8 REPORTS IN THE VOLUME OF KAITAKUSHI REPORTS OF 1874. Page 337, line 6 from bottom, for: Saporo, read : Sapporo. 373, 2 ,, side, other side. 447, , 5 , , with- Without. ,, 4(50, , 1 i 86}. 4(54, , 4 letter better. 4G7, , 17 ,, even eleven. 471, , 4 ,, That would At one half that it would. 480, ,, 5... ...,, their or their. 481, ,, 8... ...,, as as is. 598, ,, 4... ...,, much much oil. ()! in timber and in coal is far surer of indefinite growth throughout a long future. Sapporo may perhaps not be destined to be such a business centre, for which Otaruuai or possibly Mororan may be better fitted ; but Sapporo will always be a pleasant, healthful, picturesque and con- venient place for a seat of Government in a fine farming region and very near a large marine, mercantile, agricul- tural, manufacturing and mining population. On the morning of the 23d of June the two remaining 10 assistants, Messrs. Misawa and Takahashi, and myself ac- companied by tbe quartermaster, Mr. Nishimura, and my copyist, Mr. Adacln, set out for Mori on our way to the Kayauoma coal mines and to Sapporo. We arrived at Mori, 29 miles (Hf ri), towards night ; but on tbe way I bad the pleasure of spending several hours with Mr. Dun at tbe Nanai Government farm and of bearing some- thing of the very useful work be has been doing there. As I have in a former report already spoken of the geology and topography of the day's journey, and indeed of our whole journey from Hakodate hitherto, a repeti- tion of them may be passed over here. Tbe New Road, by which we travelled, had bad its bridges all put in good repair since last fall except one near Mori, which alone makes the road quite impassable to waggons. Although the road is generally very smooth, there are still on the mountain deep traces of the cross ruts made by the horses in the mud of winter. On that part of the road some laborers were improving tbe slope of the sides of the cuttings which had by washing become too steep. In these and other places tbe drain at the side of the road had become at least temporarily filled up, and should be thoroughly reopened. To roads quite as much to any thing else the homely proverb well ap- plies : "A stitch in time saves nine." The number of passers on tbe road seemed to be very few indeed, and the amount of goods carried across ex- tremely little ; perhaps owing partly to the season of the year, when it is comparatively safe for vessels to go direct to Mori and to other less sheltered points. If the road however were kept in repair, there would perhaps be ample inducement for tbe establishment of at least one line of daily waggons for carrying goods along the roads much more cheaply than can be done on tbe backs of horses. Such a business would be sure to increase, from li- the very fact that its cheapness would cause a greater demand for the articles so transported. At Nanai I was more than ever convinced of the advantage of the plan I proposed last year, that the Kai- takushi should give away or very cheaply sell the most of the horses of Yesso to the inhabitants. There is great ignorance about the proper care of horses, and as long as they are government property there will naturally be com- parative indifference as to their right treatment. Perhaps even on the government farms (where, however, men better fitted if possible than common Yesso farmers should be selected for managing the live stock) it might be economy to present some of the officials with good horses and forbid them to ride any of the government ones. Self interest would teach the owner of horses not to abuse them unmercifully. On the 24th of June, we rode from Mori to Yamuku- shinai 16J miles (6J rt). In passing Washinoki the two geological assistants and I left our horses for a while and walked into the woods under the guidance of five bright little boys (no older guide could be obtained that day) to see the pits that were dug there last year for oil by a certain Japanese company of merchants. There was a rumor last fall, as mentioned in my recent report on tlie Washinoki Oil Lands, that they had succeeded in obtain- ing as much as 50 gallons (or 12 to) of oil a day. We could find no one the other day who knew the exact amount obtained, but it was very clear from what we did learn that the rumor was a gross exaggeration ; and that if any thing like that amount of oil was gathered in one day it was not the accumulation of a single day in the wells, but of several. Indeed, the most definite and pro- bable estimate that we obtained by questioning a number of villagers was that in the whole season about 25 (more than 20 but less than 30) tubfuls of " two to " each, or 12 about ^200 gallons (or 50 to) had been obtained in the whole of last year. Six or seven pits had been dug ; all but one or two were vertical wells two or three feet square; and the exceptions were small horizontal drifts draining such shafts ; for these were all dug at some little height on the bank of the brook and generally reached down to about its level, below which the water was probably trou- blesome. The deepest and almost solely productive of the new wells is about 45 or 55 feet deep and at the top for twenty-five feet down about three feet square, but for the rest of the depth only about two feet square ; and like the other wells is dug apparently throughout in soft greenish gray sand rock. The yield of the deep well is said to have been two tubsful (16 gallons or 4 to) daily. There were traces of oil at another well, a drift running to a shaft about 30 feet deep and two feet square. The drift probably starts at a point where one of the old oil exposures was. Another similar shaft about 20 feet deep a few yards distant was quite unproductive. Another likewise without oil was dug perhaps 25 feet deep on the bank a few yards from the exposure that was described in my report on these oil lands as the second best of all. An unsuccessful shaft and drift were also dug, they say, near the main well of that report. We have the position of the wells precisely enough to lay them down pretty exactly on our lately finished map of the oil lands, although we have not yet had a chance to do so. The new productive well will no doubt be found to be on, or very close to, the outcrop of one of the oil bearing beds as laid down on the map. We were told that the oil taken was refined for burning in lamps, and we saw a lampful of it. The price was said to have been ten cents for one quarter of a sho (or at the rate of 40 cents a aho, or a dollar a gallon.) It was sold in the neighboring villages, especially at Mori, The oil 13 however is so heavy that the yield of lighting oil on re- fining must be comparatively poor ; and the best plan would be rather to make lubricating oil. The works were carried on from the third to the tenth month of last year by half a dozen officials and nearly as many laborers, but wore at length finally abandoned as wholly unsuccess- ful, a result quite in accordance with the advice that I gave ' at the outset. At Yamukushinai we revisited the oil exposures there. In addition to what we had seen before, the priest of the Buddhist temple showed us near the back of the building two places where slight traces of oil had been found in a small ditch, and another such place at the mouth of the ravine a few yards to the east, places that all correspond very well with the outcrop of the oil-bearing bed as laid down on our recent map. The small quantity found also confirms what is said on that point in my late report on those oil lands. Near the mouth of the ravine, on its eastern bank, we found a small exposure of soft greenish gray sandrock without any clear dip, and without any oil ; although some small black spots in it may possibly be traces of asphalt. On the 25th of June, we rode from Yamukushinai to Oshamambe, 22 J- miles (9 ri) ; stopping a little to look once more at the curious rock of Kuroiwa. The beaches on either side of that village had a large number of men upon them hauling in large nets of herring, Looking up Kunnui valley numerous patches of snow were still to be seen on the mountains, probably on the westerly side of the Toshibets. Through the morning of the 26th June, I was very ill and it was at first a little rainy, so that travelling was given up. But at noon the weather had cleared up, my health was better, and a few horses were obtained, so that a portion of our party could go on from Oshamambo -14-. to Kuromatsunai, 15 miles (6 ri), where we arrived some time before nightfall. The road, though still very rough and bad, had by the dryness of the season without any special repairs, so much improved that a passer by could form no conception from it of its horrible condition last fall, a condition that must, however, return every year until some effective repairs are made. The travel even by so poor a road across the peninsula here seems to be far greater than between Hakodate and Mori, judging by the very large number of men and horses we met that day and the next ; and the importance of the road would certainly seem to claim for it more attention than it has for a long time received. Perhaps with a better road several waggon loads daily by some regular line could be carried across even at the beginning. The saving of dis- tance over going round the peninsula by water is here far greater than at Mori, and the natural facilities for road building much better. Iwauai ; 30 June. At Kuromatsunai we met Mr. Carrey, a French traveller, who was on his way back to Hakodate from a trip to Sapporo. It seemed almost like meeting a fellow countryman so far from home, and the evening and early morning passed very agreeably in his society. He had heard (what I have long believed to be the case) that foreigners were desirous of undertaking coal mining in Yesso, and foreigners too who would prefer to associate Japanese capital with their own. It is quite the contrary of what was stated to me lately in Yedo by one of your representatives as an argument for the government's working of the mines ; namely, that neither natives nor foreigners were willing to enter upon such undertakings, and it was necessary for the government to set an example in that line to its countrymen. It was promised, however, to refer to you my letter protesting against such govern- 15 ment works as sure to be wastefully or injudiciously managed by officials, as compared with the carefulness of men who are laying out their own money. You charged me a year and a half ago not to divulge the rules by. which the Kaitakushi would dispose of mining privileges to private individuals ; and it has been easy to comply with the request, since I have been kept to this moment in absolute ignorance of what those rules may be, and even of any motive for not making them pub- lic. The world, however, if not the general government nor the Kaitakushi, must hold it almost incredible that a man in my position should not be consulted on a matter in which I should naturally be thought to be in some degree responsible. I shall therefore without waiting any longer for a special invitation venture to give here a rough general outline of what seems to me the best manner of disposing of coal mining rights in Yesso, aided by recollections of the condition of coal mines in other countries. In the United States, for example, the coal lands have been sold with the coal in fee simple to private individuals, who have made whatever arrangements they pleased in regard to mining, subject only to the laws in behalf of the safety of miners, and subject (like the holders of other property) to government taxes. In Nova Scotia, on the other hand, although the surface of coal lands is sold like other lauds, the right to mine the coal is reserved by the government, but is leased to private parties at a royalty of ten cents a ton. In case of a sale of the coal mining privileges out- right, as has been done in the United States, the individuals who buy would have to bear all the risks, uncertainties and delays of mining and selling the coal, and could hardly pay in advance an adequate price for the unmined coal; it would necessarily be set very low, as it was there. The government can much better afford to undertake such risks and uncertainties and endure the delays, and in fact would have much more control over them. The govern- ment, too, in merely leasing the mining privilege would retain still more distinctly the right to inspect and regulate the mode of working, so that not only the miner's lives should be safe, but the coal should not be mined in such a way as to cause (as sometimes happens) the wanton waste of large portions of the coal beds. I am not in- formed whether or not the Kaitakushi has the right to alienate the coal for ever from the government ; but, even if it have, it seems most advisable to adopt the system of leasing, under proper rules, of course. Those rules should, if possible, at the same time that they secure to the government (that is, the public) a good final return for its property, encourage mining enterprise duly among the public at large, and not to the exclusive benefit of the personal or political friends of government officials. In Nova Scotia, the coal mining privileges are leased on very liberal terms, in order to increase the busi- ness and prosperity of the country, looking not merely for direct revenue from the coal mined, but to the greater general wealth of the population. Any individual, native or foreign, can obtain the exclusive "right to search" for coal (with a view to future mining) over any tract of five square miles, not already similarly occupied, on payment of a small fee, if I remember rightly only twenty dollars. At the end of a year he may select any one of the five square miles, and on payment of a fee of fifty dollars obtain the "right to work " coal. If within two years thereafter he shall have really begun effective mining operations, he may obtain a " lease " of the coal of that square mile at the rate of ten cents a ton for every ton mined and sold. All leases are (for special local reasons) to terminate in the year 1886, when the government will once more be free to dispose of all its mines. At the 17 time when the present system was adopted the leases had si little over twenty-five years to run ; and twenty years is a common length of such leases from private owners in the United States. There, however, the royalty is com- monly ranch higher, twenty-five or thirty-seven and a half cents a ton for anthracite. In Nova Scotia the holder of a right of search is required to report the results of his investigations to the government, and the holder of a lease is required to hand in yearly a map of the under- ground workings. The Nova Scotia system is in some of its details not altogether without shortcomings. Many tracts after the leases are once granted lie almost or quite uuworked for years, without adding, as they should, to the revenue of the government, nor to the husiness activity of the coun- try. Although the rights to search and to work are nominally given to the first applicant, cases might well arise where the friends of not over honest government officials might by secret information, or otherwise, obtain an advantage over others in trying to obtain such pri- vileges. It has also been a common thing for the lucky owner of such a privilege to sell it for a large sum of money, especially after a successful but inexpensive search for coal. A gambling spirit of speculation is in that way fostered, and the inhabitants hasten to take up mining rights in the surrounding country, although wholly ignorant of the probable mineral value of the land. The owners of mining rights are as negligent as they dare be under a liberal, lenient government in regard to reporting the results of their search or mapping their underground works. It seems, therefore, decidedly best for the government to keep in its own hands the search for minerals and the underground mapping, which by a general geological survey and body of surveyors and mine inspectors would 18 in the end cost the public much less than the aggregate of numerous disconnected surveys of the separate tracts. Wild speculation in lands of imaginary mineral value would in that way be prevented with its great attendant losses ; and the government could at once furnish intend- ing operators with a geological and topographical map and report of the tract to be worked. In return it would be fair enough to demand a somewhat larger fee, say, five hundred dollars for a square mile ; for a payment of which fee, on the other hand, the preparation of a similar map and report within a reasonable time might be offered for any desired tract of like size. If effective mining opera- tions should be actually begun within say a year (or two years) after the transfer of the map and report, then a lease might be made out. In order to discourage the practice of retaining a lease without doing a fair amount of yearly work upon it, a certain payment might be agreed upon as the least that must be paid every year> say a thousand dollars. That would also ensure the government from loss in the expense of inspection and underground surveys. Twenty years would seem to be a suitable enough length of time for the leases to run, if the present Kaitakushi have the right to alienate such valuable public property for so long a time. Thirty cents a ton would seem to be a fair enough royalty to exact in Yes.so, and the price of coal here in the East is so high that such a rate would not discourage mining. In order to prevent the mischief that might arise at any future time from favoritism in the allotment of mining claims, and to set-rue to the government the profit that should properly accrue from any great demand for such privileges ; they might under conditions like those just named be offered one by one to the highest bidder, to the man who would pay the largest sum down for the lease. It is unnecessary here to go into the matter more -19 particularly ; it will be time enough to work out the minute details whenever it shall he decided to adopt the general plan. Kayanoma ; 2 July. With regard to permitting foreign- ers to undertake mining in Yesso, it may he best to say a few words ; although no argument is needed to convince the inhabitants of most countries of the advantage of having [he aid of foreign capital in the development of their natural resources. It, is, to be sure, generally be- lieved that there is some reluctance in the present case to allow foreigners to participate in such opportunities as may exist here for amassing wealth by mining enterprises ; and many even think that, if a foreigner should be permitted to embark in an industrial enterprise and should find it profitable, the jealousy of the govern- ment against him as an outsider would thereupon con- trive such methods of hampering him as would result ultimately in his ruin. It is hardly to be supposed, how- ever, that any government with the slightest pretension to enlightenment could be guilty of such childish folly as that. But even if there be auy political or other re&son for excluding foreign capitalists from operating mines by themselves in a country to whose laws and courts they are not yet willing to submit themselves ; there would seem to be no reason for discouraging the association of foreigners with natives in such enterprises. On the con- trary, there are very strong arguments in favor of the plan. Besides the addition of foreign capital to native, which would necessarily tend to increase the business, the wealth and the revenue of the country, there would be a great advantage to the native capitalists, hitherto inexperienced in modern business and perhaps timid about embarking in it alone. Associated in equal shares with foreigners well trained in the best business methods of western countries, -20- they would without cost get the benefit of all their skill and experience. Hardly any better way could be devised for introducing into the country those excellent modern methods of business, that are the result of centuries of ex- periment and progress, and are so greatly lacking in Japan. The Japanese would be very greatly gainers ; but the foreigners, on the other hand, would be free from harassing suspicions as to the treatment they might at any time receive from the government ; for the very fact of equal association with natives would protect their capital and enterprise. Sapporo ; 7 July. On the 27th of June, Sunday, we rode from Kuromatsunai to Esoya, 15 miles (6 ri); and on the 21st from Esoya across Raiden Moun- tain to Iwanai, 17^ miles (7 ri). The road across the mountain is still extremely bad, especially on the Hakodate side. On approaching Iwanai we found half a dozen men making the very stony road a little smoother, and it seemed at first as if here at hist was a place where the Kaitakushi was attending a little to road repairs ; but no, the villagers were themselves doing the work in preparation for a religious festival. It seemed for a moment almost a pity that superstition did not require the dragging of a heavy car across Raiden Moun- tain every year ; for in that case the road would be sure of being put in good order at least once a year. As it is, both the roads and the hotels of Yesso seem to have been gradually but steadily deteriorating for at least three or four years. The new road from Hakodate to Mori and Mororan to Sapporo and Otarunai has, to be sure, been built ; and a few new hotels of about the same date show that there were hopes then of speedy improvement in the condition of the country. On the 29th of June it was rainy all day and we stay- ed at Iwanai. I wrote a portion of this report, and the 21 copyist copied another part of it. On the 30th it was also very threatening weather all the morning, and I still worked at the report. In the afternoon, however, we rode from Iwanai to Kayanoma, 7-J- miles (3 ri). In passing Horikap \vc noticed that the large building of the old abandoned suit manufactory had been turned to account at last as a place for sawing lumber and for a carpenter's shop. On the 1st and 2nd of July we visited the coal mines. We found that a fault of about thirty feet had been met with in the Houshiki drift and had been overcome by a crooked tunnel through the rock, but that after following the bed less than fifty yards further it seemed to be growing thinner again as if near another similar fault. The Shinshiki drift had reached the first fault and stopped ; and the Mtdzunnkishiki drift had on the Hon- shiki bed met a like thinning out, and probably likewise a fault near the entrance of the Honshiki, working south westerly. Working north-easterly it had not nearly reached the first mentioned fault, but had come to a rather thin place in the bed ; which was taken to be another fault, but no doubt corresponds to a thin place in the Honshiki drift where there was no fault. Owing to these faults and thin spots, the progress of the drifts had been stopped, and, as the coal opened up by them had become nearly exhausted, there was room for only nineteen men to work in the mine. The rest of the eighty miners who were there two years ago, had gone away to Otarunai, Esashi and other more or less distant places. The mines had therefore almost wholly lost the very great merit of being already so far opened up that a large number of miners could be at any time put into them, and a large quantity of coal taken out at very short notice. It would be necessary, as with a new mine, to drive the gangways forward a long distance, a slow 22 process, before room could be found for many miners. There' are, however, three or four gangways already begun, so that by punishing them all forward space for a pretty good number of men could be obtained in a some- \vliat shorter time than in a mine that is wholly new. We visited the Tarioko drift, that opens the Kosawa No. 1 coal, but it had also been abandoned because the bed had grown thinner after going about 80 feet towards the Honshiki. It is probable that there is a fault there, in addition to the one in the Midzunukishiki near the Honshiki, and there can now be no doubt that by means of these two and possibly other faults, amounting in all to about 70 feet, the Kosawa No. 1 bed will prove to be the same as the Honshiki bed. It becomes clear likewise that the Osawa No. 2 bed is the same as the Kosawa No. 1, which it closely resembles ; and probably there is no great amount of faulting between those two points. As Osawa No. 2 is at a level of 79 feet below the Tarioko drift, and is the lowest drainage level of the bed in the Kayanoma valley it would be very desirable to open it up by a drift, as recommended indeed in a former letter, where its- identity wilh the Honshiki bed was already declared (although the faults that make the Kosawa No. 1 to be the same were not known.) Without wailing for that letter a new drift had been driven a few yards upon Osawa No. 1 in the belief that it was the Honshiki bed instead of the Midzunukishiki bed, which it really is. The coal in the new drift was about four feet thick, and was said to be of good quality ; so that it might be worth while to continue the drift, for the sake of working that bed, if it be not desired to lay out the whole available force for the present in working beds that are still thicker. As the Tarioko and the Midznnukishiki drifts are oil the same level, it is hardly worth while to go on with the Tarioko, because the two faults would have to 23 be tunnelled .across and very little coal obtained after all ; and that little can be taken out by the Osawa No. 2 drift. The coal is still carried to the harbor, they told us, on the backs of horses, as it was last fall, but the inclined planes, the tramroad and the cars were very soon to be used again. With so costly a method of transportation it must have been lucky on the whole that the yield of the mine was so small. Sapporo ; 8 July. Late in the afternoon of the 2d of July we left our quiet, cleanly quarters of Kayanoma and returned to Iwanai, 7 3- miles (3 ri) ; myself on horseback, the rest still later by boat. On the morning of the 3d, just as we were setting out for Oshoro, 37-^ miles (15 ri), Mr. Ichichi, now one of the Iwanai officials, came to talk about a breakwater that it had been proposed to build at Iwanai, partly for the benefit of the coal trade. We spent an hour in walking and rowing about to see the place, and of course the knowledge to be gained in so short a time could only be very general and derived chiefly from the well informed inhabitant of the town who guided us and was evidently strongly in hopes that a breakwater would be built. Before actually beginning so expensive a work it would be best to have a thorough survey of the place and of its surroundings made, and, if possible, to take the advice of somebody more specially conversant with such matters than I am. The shore near the anchorage runs north- westerly, bending round to westerly within a few hundred yards. Just at the bend, and outside of the anchorage, they say there is a rocky shoal 200 yards wide that runs out nearly at right angles from the shore, reaching to a depth of only o feet at 100 yards from shore, 10 feet at 200 yards, and 18 feet at 400 yards. At the anchorage the water is deep, even up to forty feet or so, Twenty 24 or thirty junks were at anchor there, close to each other, sido by side in rows, at the timeofonr visit ; and there were a number there last October at the time of the storm that made so many wrecks at Fiirubira, Otarunai and other places of the west coast ; yet there were no wrecks at Iwanai. Nevertheless the bottom is only sand, not good for anchoring. The plan proposed was to build out on the shoal a wooden pier like that of Mori (which they said cost 30,000 rio). The bay is so very wide that only a small space would be thoroughly land-locked by such a breakwater, even if built 400 yards long ; but the protection to the whole of the present anchorage would be very greatly improved. From what I have seen of piers and breakwaters in similar extremely exposed posi- tions, I am confident that such a structure as the one proposed would be broken almost every year by the enormous force of the waves striking broadside against it in heavy storms, even if built of cribwork filled with stones, much more solidly than the Mori pier. I learned at Mori that the hiba wood used for the pier was not at- tacked by the ship-worm and would hist fifteen years in the water. It would be necessary however to count upon replacing it as often as that. It would therefore probably be much cheaper in the end to build with stone, which they said could be quarried at no very great distance. Owing to the shallowness, the amount of stone needed would not he very great, even if a very gentle slope should be given to the outer side of the breakwater. With the map of a proper survey it would be easy, o calculate the amount of stone needed and to calculate the cost of the breakwater, and so to judge of the feasibility of building it for the amount of shipping to which it would be likely to give protection. If the outer slope should be made very gen lie and protected with large blocks of stone, perhaps partly with cut stone, 25 it seems to me that little or nothing would afterwards ever be needed for repairs. There is no stream emptying into the anchorage to silt it up ; and the unsheltered shore is quite distant, and for a number of miles merely a gently sloping sand beach without streams larger than small rivulets ; and the entrance to the anchorage is its widest part ; so that the waves and tides would hardly bring much sand to be deposited in its quiet water and to be dredged out again when the water became, in the course of many years, too shallow. As far as coal shipping is concerned, it seems to me that such a break water would on the whole be less feasible than the shorter one that has been proposed for Chatsunai and Shibui harbors, so much nearer to the mines, and so favorably situated in respect to the stone for building it, and to every thing else except the rocky bottom, bad for anchors (and iu so small and well protected a harbor, the vessels could perhaps be tied almost always to posts on shore). Nevertheless, when the Horikap and upper Shiribets valleys are opened up by waggon roads and farms, the business of Iwanai as the n:\t lira,! outlet, of a large and fertile region may very well justify the building of the proposed breakwater (in a prudent economical way) ; especially since harbors are so rare along the coast that a good one here and there would become of great importance as the resort of large vessels, which could take to Nippon or to China the fishery pro- ducts brought from neighboring portions of the coast by small junks. The proposed Shibui breakwater, although making a harbor large enough for shipping the coal, at least by steamers, might not give protection to so much shipping as the business of Iwanai would require. Just as I w r as mounting my horse, my opinion was asked as to the buying of a steamer (a tug, as I under- stood) for the coal business. It would certainly be worth while to have one iu case an artificial harbor should -26- be made and coal should be mined in any quantity ; but at present there seems to be no sufficient reason for incur- ring such an expense, with such a risk of loss by ship- wreck. I \vas finally off by eight o'clock and was surprised to fliid that my companions, and most of the baggage horses were equally late. The road as far Rubeshibe across the mountain was in very bad order a great part of the way and here, as elsewhere, repeated trips during the last two years have shown the deterioration to be pretty constant, and the repairs, within that time at least, to have been apparently none at all. From Rubeshibe I wished to take the new road to the sea beach near Oshoro which the landlord said last October was about finished and was to be opened within four or five days ; and by which the distance to Oshoro would be four ri instead of eight, without a hill as far as to the sea shore. I had been delighted to give the Kaitakushi great credit for making at least one such improvement in the wretched roads of Yesso ; but was afterwards told by a high Kaitakushi official that he had consented to the building of the road, but that the expense had been borne by the neighboring inhabitants, who had asked leave to make the improvement ! In answer to inquiries about the new road on ap- proaching it, no very clear account of it could be got ; and the impression was given that, although somewhat travelled over, it was not in very good condi- tion. Thinking that if others had passed over it with horses we could do so too, and that, even though we went slowly, the saving of four ri was very important, I rode down it at four o'clock, after finding with great difficulty and delay the place where it began. It seemed but little travelled, although generally a pretty well marked track, aiid it turned out that no horse had ever beeu over 27 the greater part of it before. Nevertheless after an adventurous trip and one or two hair breadth escapes from losing the horse by bad bridges I succeeded in reaching the sea long after dark, and then by an easy and mostly familiar road of nearly two ri arriv- ed to Oshoro about half past eleven. Half an hour later, as it was beginning to rain, the groom and two other servants by the old road by way of Yoichi, arrived with some baggage and all the others had gone that way. The new road is still very far from being so short as had been said ; but makes the distance from Rubeshibe to the Yoichi ferry perhaps a ri shorter than the old road does (a distance which I had fully lost in searching for the beginning), and is much more level. It would seem very well worth while to lay out the very small sum of money needed to make the few bad bridges good, and if necessary to dig ditches along the road. At present there has been so little travel that there is not much mud except at the streams. It rained heavily through the rest of the night and the early morning of the next day, 4th of July, Sunday. But as the rain grew trifling towards noon, and the rest of the baggage had come, we set out at eleven, and rode from Oshoro to Zenibako, 20 miles (8 ri). The road as far as Otaruuai was very slippery with mud, and the rest of the way very rough indeed with stones, so as to make progress very slow with an unshod, tenderfooted horse ; but we arrived in nearly six hours. It is this heavy tax by bad roads upon the time and strength of every traveller and every packhorse, that makes it so economical to the public in the end to build good roads and to keep them in good repair. About nine o'clock the cook and groom arrived on foot, and said that although all the rest had arrived safely at Otarunai, it had been impossible in two hours to obtain, even three packhorses to bring forward the 28 most necessary baggage. Such a fact seemed noteworthy in a town of 500 dwelling houses, especially as in a year and a half s travelling in Yesso no serious difficulty had ever been found in getting a much larger number of horses at shorter notice in even very small places. The next morning, 5th of July, I rode from Zenibako to Sapporo, 12J miles (5 ri) ; and the rest also arrived early in the afternoon. Sapporo; llth July. The improvement of the road from Zenibako to Sapporo within the last two years is very marked, especially in the number of new houses and farms ; tending to confirm what I have repeatedly insist- ed on, that good roads are what is most essential for inducing immigrants to occupy the many fine farming regions of Yesso. The apparent prosperity along the road was, however, due in part perhaps to the new immi- grants brought lately by the Kaitakushi and settled in a neat looking village to the left of the road before reaching Sapporo. I have already in last year's report argued against the policy of bringing immigrants to Yesso by so costly a method, when the same expense laid out in roads, schools and such public improvements would probably attract a much larger, wholly voluntary, immigration which would entail no unusual responsibilities upon the Kaitakushi. The village seems to have been built with its houses very close together as has been the old custom in countries infested with savages or disturbed with guerilla warfare, instead of having each house upon its own farm as com- monly happens in the new western states of America, and as seems more suitable to the peaceable circumstances of Yesso. There are no fierce savages nor lawless brigands here and in case of foreign invasion this wooden village would give little if any better protection against modern artillery thau scattered homesteads would, On 29 the other hand the farmers must now walk daily a long distance to and from their fields, and by a waste of much labor bring the produce to the village. Moreover in the driving out of troublesome wild beasts from any region, scattered habitations all over it must be a most effective agency, as compared with isolated villages with wide spaces between, as may be seen by looking at thinly inhabited portions of America with very few such animals, and at India with a very large population concentrated 'in villages and with great numbers of beasts of prey between. Though the wide intermediate fields be fre- quently visited, the wild animal does not always find them occupied and can frequently pass through them undisturbed ; but if houses be scattered there, they are always there and he always meets with men, his haunts and his freedom are effectually broken up, and if he escapes with his life he must remove to some wilder region. The advantages of a closely built village are that the children can go readily to school every day, the militia men can assemble easily for their occasional training, and, in the present case, the government supplies of rice can every month be con- veniently distributed. But farms here are so small that even with scattered houses the children would not have to go too far, especially as their work at school is not bodily labor, and a walk before and after would do no harm ; and the trainings and the distributions of food are so much rarer than the farmer's daily visits to his field as to deserve much less to be considered in planning a settlement. The village in question is some distance back from the main road like a number of other farming villages around Sapporo that are quite hidden from the sight of travellers over the main highways. The villages thereby lose in a great measure the benefit of the outlay that has been 30-- made upon the great road, and the country continues to look wild and unattractive to a new immigrant. Even the more favorably situated lands plong thoroughfares must therefore wait long before they will increase in market value and be much sought for. The earliest, coin- ers, too, lose the natural reward of their being the first immigrants, and have their hardships increased, and must consequently give to the friends they left behind a less pleasing picture of their experiences and hold up to them much smaller inducements to immigrate likewise. It seems therefore a very bad plan for the Kaitakushi to reserve for future immigrants and perhaps higher prices the better situated lands ; for it must be the aim of the government to have the country well settled up and con- sequently productive, and a few dollars more or less in the price of the land is of much less importance. How- ever desirable it may be that government officials should become personally interested in the country by owning land there, any tendency on their part or on that of their friends to retard the progress of settlement, by buying up the best tracts of lands and letting them lie idle until they can be sold at high prices, should be severely discouraged. A yearly tax levied upon land with some reference to its natural value, whether cultivated or not, would be a dis- couragement to holding lands idle for a long time. Sapporo ; 13 July. Perhaps indeed the best method of raising revenue from land would be to divide all the land of the country permanently into four or five classes according to its value ; as, for example, good farming land, mountain land, swampland, townlots, and land bordering on a great thoroughfare, say a river, the sea, or a road ; and to have them always thereafter taxed each class at its own rate, but with that rate bearing a certain permanent relation to a standard that could be fixed every year, or more seldom, according to the needs of the go- 31 vernmeut. In that way the excessive labor and almost inevitable errors of a minute valuation (such as is under- taken from time to time in some parts of India) would be got rid of; and yet substantial justice would be done. Whenever a farming region is opened up by new roads the lauds adjoining them could easily be advanced from one class to another ; and likewise in the case of building new towns. As compared with the Japanese practice of taking yearly a certain portion of the product of the land, it would greatly discourage letting land lie idle and there- fore unproductive not only to the revenue but to the general wealth of the community, and in like manner would discourage inefficient and harmful methods of cultivation. Farmers would be encouraged to lay out money in permanent improvements of the cultivable land, because, although they would thereby obtain larger harvests, their taxes would not at the same time be increased. Money so invested would in fact become in a manner exempt from future taxes ; but the commu- nity would gain correspondingly in its general wealth and prosperity, and its greater ability to raise the standard rate of land taxes. As new lands are taken up, either the land revenue could be increased, or the standard rate could be lowered. In Yesso, however, little or no revenue seems as yet to be raised from the land, and perhaps for the encouragement of immigration it is best that it should continue so. Still, enough might be raised from land owners to keep the roads in repair, if not to build new ones. But if the horses of Yesso should become the property of the inhabitants, instead of that of the Kai- takuslii almost exclusively, the road repairs and even some at least of the road building could be done with equitable and easily borne taxes on beasts of burden and vehicles, which use and wear out the roads. By an ex- tension of the same principle the schools, hospitals 82- almshouses, courts, police, and ptfsons could be supported by taxes on wines, tobacco and perhaps some other luxuries ; the land survey and military expenses by a land tax ; the coast survey, light-house and naval expenses by a tax on shipping or on fishery privileges ; and the geolo- gical survey and mine inspection expenses by the coal royalty. Under a system of that kind the connection between a tax and the use to which it is applied would be so obvious that even direct taxes would cause no more discontent than ordinary indirect ones. Sapporo ; 15 July. As I have been some days in Sapporo, it may be worth while to comment on a few things that have come under my eye, though they be out of my special line and no official information in regard to them has been given me. The streets have a decidedly busier look than they had last year, although the still very numerous empty and abandoned houses are now much more striking with their tattered window paper and dilapidated walls and roofs. No doubt the new settlers in the neighborhood and the farms and mills have added to the business of the town ; and the present improvement is apparently better found- ed, more cautious and more likely to continue than that of three years ago, which must have been based on very extravagant anticipations. There is some reason to hope that with the present steady advance all the empty houses may before very long be permanently occupied. The chief new enterprise now going on in the town itself seems to be the building of the two or three large new houses of the boys' and girls' schools. The boys' school is pretty well situated in the quiet, airy quarter that has been set apart for the homes of officials and for offices. The site, however, seems to be none too well provided with space for a large play ground, so essential not only for the amusement, but for the health and strength of such S3 a large number of children, no matter of which sex. Unoccupied land is not so rare in this region as to give any excuse for neglecting a matter of such importance. But the girls' school is far worse off than the boys' in that respect, and could indeed hardly have found a more unsuitable place than the one it has, which was, however, exactly the right one for the old honjin that lately stood there. It is the very middle of the business part of the town, on the busiest, noisiest thoroughfare, and with scarcely a foot of land near it that can possibly be made into a play-ground. Indeed only one worse place in the whole town could have been chosen, but that, although created by the Kaitakushi, and, as I understand, peopled by it, and less than a quarter of a mile from this home for young girls, would in almost any other country be thought too disgraceful even to be mentioned. The school buildings themselves seem large enough to give room for the lodg- ings of a pretty good number of scholars. Sapporo ; 16 July. It seems however to be thought nowadays by those who are best informed on such matters that it is not a good plan to shut up numerous individuals of a single class in one establishment, and that large school dormitories as well as large hospitals or largo prisons tend to create and propagate great evils that tend on the other hand rather to disappear if those afflicted with them be scattered widely among a population that is free from such taints. In other words it would b.c much better for the physical, moral and intellectual health of the scholars to live here and there among the respectable families of the town, a very small number at most in each house ; where they would have a much larger share of home influences (so essential to the formation of good character in children) than is possible in a large dormi- tory. Certain very grave evils that are apt to rssnlt from assembling so many youths together in one establish- ^-34- ment have hitherto happily been so rare in Japan as hardly even to he dreamed of. It may seem useless to talk of a family system in a town where at present scarcely one official's wife makes her home ; hut the dormitories could at least have been divided into much smaller separate ones that should have some respectable family or individual to take charge of each, with a view to a still more complete subdivision as soon as practicable. It is clear, however, that the scholars are not children of inhabitants of Sapporo, even if they have parents at more or less distant places in Yesso. It is right then to consider whether there are any advantages in having the schools here rather than in Yedo where they have been hitherto. If the expense of lodging and boarding and properly teaching the scholars be less, and the social and intellectual influences better here than in Yedo, there can be no question about the propriety of the removal ; for, although the climate of Yedo be probably the best in the whole world, that of Sapporo is sufficiently good and healthful, delightful in summer and not by any means excessively rigorous in winter, in spite of the bad reputation it has among the highly favored inhabitants of Nippon. But it can scarcely be doubted that Yedo can claim superiority in those other respects even more than in its climate. Especially the additional difficulty and expense of obtaining here permanent satisfactory instruc- tion would alone be reason enough for not making the removal. Moreover, a foreigner accustomed to see how the different departments of a government in any foreign country cooperate one with another cannot help asking why these schools, chiefly for the training of very young children with foreign instruction to become teacher> at some future time, should be kept by the Kaitakushi at all. Why should the children not be sent as Kaitakushi pupils 35- to the schools of the Educational Department of Japan ? or why should not teachers for the local schools of Yesso be taken, when wanted, from among the graduates of the normal schools of the Japanese government? As regards economy and efficiency one consolidated management of schools for the whole empire would seem likely to be decidedly hotter than the present arrangement. Of coarse the greatest need of Yesso is primary schools for all its children, both Japanese and Aiuo, children that are still too young to leave the homes of their parents ; and it is of the utmost importance to find suitable and nume- rous teachers for such schools as soon as possible. The pupils for higher schools are much fewer, and their parents can generally better afford to provide for their education themselves. Among the public works going on near Sapporo is one that deserves mention as it seems to endanger the town itself; I mean the dam that is building near the upper head gate of the canal that runs through the village and supplies the saw-mill. The head gate and its embank- ment were carried a\vay by a freshet la!e in 1873, but early in 1874 were rebuilt much better with the embank- ment higher ami larger, and are now apparently still im- proved by the consolidation that has come with time. But as the gate is just at the outer edge of a bend in the side channel that feeds the canal, it must in times of high water be fully exposed to a current of tremendous force. It is clear that for such an emergency the channel below the gate, as far as to the main stream close by, should bo kept as free from obstructions as possible, in order to favor the harmless escape of the swollen waters. It is therefore a matter of no little astonishment to find that laborers are building a dam across at that very point, just below the gate. The dam, to be sure, is not so high as the gate and embankment, but must be at least four or 36 five feet high, and will tend very greatly to hinder the flow of the water even in time of flood. It will tend to raise the level of the water, so that in the highest freshets it may perhaps run over the rather narrow embankment and very likely loosen and wear away the earth of which it is chiefly made, especially if the logs that form its crihwork or sides shall in the mean time have lost some of their strength by decay. The water will be aided in such work by the huge drift wood that the current will send with great force against the em- bankment in sweeping round the curve. The reason for building the dam has probably been that the lower end of the channel had become worn so low that the water could hardly enter the gate. But a better remedy would have been either lowering the bottom of the gate (and the sleep grade of the canal would admit of deepening its upper end) ; or else a temporary very low dam of loose materials (such as now enables the dam to be built with- out inconvenience from water; could every year be made at very small expense, and allowed to be swept away by the freshets ; or at worst a substantial dam could be built in the present place, but very low indeed, so as to obstruct the channel as little as possible. But even a low dam, though in a less degree than the present high and very strong one, would not only tend of itself to raise the wafer, but would tend to cause the accumulation of drift wood that -would give the effect of increased height to the dam. IF the embankment should give way in a time of very high flood, such as happens once in several ycnrs, the disaster that would be wrought in the town below would be extremely great. The new bridge across the Toyohira here is another case where the intention was better than the result. They say that the longer span fell down of its own weight and that the shorter one can barely hold itself up. The 37 highest proof of wisdom is said to be a consciousness of one's own ignorance ; but, though high wisdom be rare in oilier countries, it must be difficult to find one of them where I he building of a bridge of such size could be entered upon without at least taking and following the advice of a competent civil engineer specially trained for such work. Many communities, corporations or indivi- duals with nearly two million dollars a year to lay out in public improvements, a good part of which should be engineering works, such as roads and bridges, would perceive the economy of keeping in permanent employ- ment at least one good civil engineer, who could be trusted not only to give advice about such works, but to take charge of building them when once determined on. It might be gratifying to a foolish vanity to do everything one's self with, or without, or even against the advice of a man specially trained for the work, but it would be rather an expensive way for Japan to learn the principles of engineering. Meantime the little bridge near Hakodate has still the honor of being the only finished bridge in Yesso that can have cost more than a hundred dollars. Sapporo : 17 July. The Sapporo mills, however; arc an establishment that the Kaitakushi may well look on with some pride ; and indeed their merits seem now to be better appreciated than they were a year or two ago, before the works were fairly in running order, and now very active operations are kept up daily from early morning until night, instead of the half time of former years. All parts of the wood working machinery seem to be in use : the steam saw-mill, the water saw-mill, the planing machine, the tonguing and grooving machines the scroll saw, the shingle machines, the lath machine, all kept busy by workmen who are now familiar with their management. Besides that, handsomely finished doors, 38 window sashes, chairs and other objects are turned out hi large numbers by skilful workmen, who use moulding planes that were made here. The large number of logs that have mi fortunately been kept waiting in the ponds too long, are now getting sawed up, and a good store of boards, planks, slit work, shingles, and other sawn material is accumulating, and, by seasoning, becoming far more valuable than the green wood of which the first houses of Sapporo were built. One very curious circumstance, however, is worth mentioning, and that is, that in the midst of all this active use of the best modern wood working machinery, there is a long shed in which 25 or 30 stalwart men are ju.st as busily sawing large logs into boards by means of the primitive hand saw ; and that, too, at such wages that they can earn about 70 cents a day, or half a cent a foot of board measure. If even hand sawing at such wages is profitable here, the power sawing must be much more so. It seems indeed quite unquestionable that such mills in private hands would give a handsome profit ; for even with the high wages of the western coast of America lumber is sent many thousand miles right past Yesso to the Chinese market. What has been said about the working of coal mines by the government applies almost equally to its sawing of lumber. But as the capital needed for a saw-mill is much less than for a mine, it may have been very well worth while for the government to show by an actual experiment what could be done by small capitalists, and to put up mills of its own as a sort of training school for workmen. It must, how- ever, in other respects be most desirable to encourage private parties, especially Japanese associated with foreigners, as urged above in regard to the mines, to set up mills of their own, with the privilege of cutting timber within a certain district on condition of paying a moderate 39 royalty for every thousand feet of board measure. It would be necessary, of course, by forest inspection to keep some oversight of the cutting of trees, in order to prevent a wanton waste of what must become more and more valuable material. It i.s not to be supposed that the supply of timber is literally inexhaustible, though it is known to bo very great. No estimate of the whole amount has ever been made, and scarcely a measurement has been made on which a general estimate could be based. Still, as even a very roughly approximate idea is better than no definite one at all, it may be worth while to consider the matter here. It would seem that while the trees of the Ishcari valley bottom are large and good, those of most of the rest of the island are in general of no very great value. Last summer in showing the assistants at Poronai how to measure a forest, I made the only such measurement that has been made in Yesso. The spot happened not to be very heavily wooded, but may, perhaps without enormous error, be taken as an average of the forests of the bottom land of the Ishcari valley. WQ found about 21,000 feet of board measure to the acre, or say 13,000,000 feet to the square mile. The extent of the Ishcari bottom lands has been very roughly estimated at some 600 square miles ; and if we teckoii that one half of it be covered with forest, aside from the swampy and prairie lands, we have 300 square miles of good forest, which would contain, say, 3,900 million feet of limber. A steam saw-mill like the one at Sapporo could cut, they say, 10,000 feet a day with case, or say three million feet a year. It would take thirteen such mills then at least a hundred years to saw up the timber now standing in the valley ; and by that time the trees that are now small would have become large, so that the supply of timber v/ would be almost as great as it is now. As the bottom lands are, however, very good indeed for farms, it will no doubt be thought best to cut the forests quite off and to depend on the abundant mountain lands for future supplies of timber to the island, if not for export. It would ttike, then, five times thirteen or 65 mills to saw up the timber in twenty years ; or allowing for the growth of the trees in that time, say eighty mills would make a clean sweep of the forests in twenty years. About o,000 million feet would have been sawed, which at a royalty of one dollar a thousand feet would have yielded a revenue of five million dollars with very little expense for collection and inspection, and the land would be very greatly improved for farming. But it nuist not be forgotten that the estimate is an extremely rough one ; and although the best and heaviest timber is generally near the streams, and the swamps and prairies further back, yet the dif- ficulty of getting the logs to the nearest water that could float them would perhaps very greatly lessen the number that could profitably be brought to the mill and to market. The fine large sticks of timber would also be a comparatively small part of the whole. It is readily to be seen from the estimate, rough as it is, how insignificant is the lumber interest of Yesso compared with that of the coal. Probably the coal of the little Kayanoma field alone would yield within an easy depth, at 30 cents a ton, a greater revenue than all the lumber we have been reckoning on. However unnecessary it mny be for the government to embark in risky industrial enterprises like mines or even saw-mills for the sake of showing capitalists what may be done and how to do it, the objection has much less force when brought agaiust government -41 farms. For the government can do much in the way of teaching ihe small farmers, mostly men without capital, and in trying for them experiments in cultivation and in the introduction of new and useful plants and labor-saving implements. The Kaitakushi has already done admirable work in the bringing of cattle, fruit trees, grain and other plants from abroad and in their abundant propagation and distribution. In a few years the new orchards alone, amounting to hundreds of thousands of trees in bearing, will bring the good fame of the Kaitakushi most agreea- bly into every body's mouth ; and will excuse many a mistake (hat may have been made. The government farms at Sapporo have been very much enlarged since last summer, and it is to be hoped therefore that they are not a costly burden to the depart- ment, as indeed they ought not to be. Although their main object is not the earning of a profit to the govern- ment yet they ought to be managed with strict economy, and give a wholesome lesson and example to the farming public in this point as well as in others. Among the most important things to teach the farmers is how to substitute the cheap labor of animals for that of men and how to make one horse take the place of ten in this region of wide, level, fertile land that must be so low in price that even small owners ought to be able with proper appliances to cultivate larger fields than in Nippon. The Kaitakushi has already done something in the way of bringing ploughs, mowing machines, waggons and carts V into use on its own farms, but much yet remains to be done. Strong waggons and carts that can be used even on rough roads seem to be among the most useful objects for the inhabitants of the country, especially if the good roads become more numerous. At the Sapporo mills it must now be easy to build one horse carts that could be 42 sold at a moderate price to the farmers and save them the maintenance of many of their horses besides saving a great deal of their own time and labor. But the only waggons and carts that I have happened to see here or at the farms are of poor patterns for general use. Two or three things of minor importance have hap- pened to come under my eye and perhaps deserve a word. The dwelling houses in the official quarter of Sapporo, though built neatly in foreign style, have a singular appearance from the lack of chimneys, and even the new school-houses have none. In the close, uuveutilated rooms of such houses the Japanese brazier would be a most dangerous heating apparatus; and, even if enough outer air be admitted to prevent suffocation, yet the tendency to lung complaints must bo very much increased. The custom adopted for some houses of putting an un- sightly stove pipe through a hole in the outer wall is a very unsafe one. For foreign houses with high windows and without Japanese mats foreign furniture, chairs, tables and bed steads are very necessary, but seem to be still extremely rare in Sapporo, though they can readily be manufactured at the mills. It is perhaps to be re- gretted that so very radical a change in the style of architecture should have been attempted instead of trying to adapt the ordinary Japanese house to the winter climate. Even a few dollars laid out in replacing most of the wood of the rain doors and the paper of the windows with glass and a little more attention to close- ness in fitting the slides would go very far towards accomplishing the end in view, and in fact would need scarcely anything further except chimneys, in case wood be burnt. Complete tightness in the fitting of doors and windows is no ohject, for it would have to be made up for by special ventilators, The principal streets of Sapporo 43 have lately been metalled with river gravel, a very great improvement in rainy weather on the slippery black mud that the rich soil naturally produces. But the improve- ment would have been still far greater with scarcely any increase of expense, if the gravel had first been thrown upon large inclined screens so as to separate the sand and smaller pebbles from the very large stones that now encumber the road every where and cause the '' improved'' porlion to be carefully avoided by all passers. Even waggons and iron shod horses would need almost an eternity to pound such material into something satis- factory. The new post and rail fences at the government farms have been made with almost double the labor that is necessary ; for the posts are the chief source of outlay in such a (three rail) fence and one half of them here are quite useless, those, namely, that are in the middle of the rails. Sapporo : 19 July. Since our arrival in Sapporo Uie assistants and I have been occupied daily .with office work, report writing and map making, so far as the extremely poor accommodations for mapping would permit. We have now finished the report and map of the Makuunbets Coal Field, and the report shall be sent with this. For greater safety the map would bettor wait until our return to Yedo ; but, as I find there is a good photographer here, perhaps it will be convenient to send soon a photograph on half the original scale. We are all impatient to get into the field now ; but owing to the breaks in the telegraph have been some days vainly expecting to hear definitely your wishes in regard to the survey for a coal road from Poronai, on the whole the best place to begin working the great Ishcari coal field, to Horuinuibuto, the nearest practicable ship* ping point on the river ; since there was some desire expressed for such a survey on my arrival here. Sapporo ; 20 July, 187o. I improve the opportunity of sending you now this portion of the report of the season's work ; and have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, BENJ. SMITH LYMAN, Chief Geologist and Mining Engineer to the Kaltakushi. 45 Camp near Bibaibuto ; 28 July, 187o. His EXCELLENCY K. KURODA, Kaitnhiicholiuwan. SIR : On the 20th of July, (the day I sent to you by mail my report of progress up to that date and the report on the Maknmbets Coal Field) my assistants and I went to look at the bog iron ore places near Hiragishimura, and about 3 miles (1^ ri) south of Sapporo. Messrs. Kuwada and Mayeda, of the assistants, had gone there with some laborers the day before to attend to any digging that might be necessary in order to expose the ore properly ; and had brought back sketches from a little rough surveying and measurements of the ore. Hiragishimura is a farming settlement, a mile or more long on either side of a wide highway, through the middle of which water runs in a narrow canal northward to- wards the Toyohira from a branch of the samo stream, called Fastingman River (Shojin-gawa) because fish are kept out of it by a weir. Some half a mile from the southern end of the village is the nearer ore place in the side and bottom of the canal and in the midst of a swampy forest. Owing to rain that had fallen heavily in the night and swollen the streams we could only see a very few inches of the top of the ore ; but Mr. Kuwada had carefully measured it the day before and found it 2J feet thick with perhaps a foot of reddish brown loam above it and 2J feet of soil above that ; making about six feet in all for the depth of the hole, which had at bottom below the ore, sandy clay with small stones. 46 About 15 yards northerly along the canal, ore is exposed again by the upturned roots of a fallen tree ; but uo dig- ging has yet been made there. Indeed, for about ,50 yards northerly from the digging, small ore bits are to be seen among the earth that has been thrown out in digging the canal ; but at 70 yards in that direction no more of them are found. In like manner to the south, ore bits are numerous for 50 yards but altogether disappear within 75 yards. The ore is a hard brown hematite, but very porous and therefore apparently light in weight ; and a rumor has reached me that in an analysis by Mr. Ishibaslu it yielded about 56 per cent, of iron and a large amount of phosphorus. I know nothing whatever of his trust- worthiness as a chemist, but, as I mentioned already last fall, it is highly probable that the amount of phosphorus would be large, as in other bog iron ore, and I he quality therefore very bad. It is not easy to ascertain the whole quantity of the ore ; but it is clear that it must be quite small. It seems to have been formed in a swamp (perhaps out of some small deposit of magnetic iron sand from volcanic rocks, for numerous bits of pumice and other volcanic stones are found in the alluvium here) and to lie nearly paralled to the present surface of the ground, which is still some- what boggy. Without digging numerous deep holes here and there throughout the swamp it is impossible to tell with much precision the extent of the bed of ore or its thickness at all points ; but the canal happily supplies in a measure the place of so troublesome an exploration. For it has crossed the deposit in nearly a straight line, and there is no improbability in supposing the extent and thickness to be as great in that direction as in any other ; they are in fact just as likely to be greater as to be less. It may therefore be supposed that the bed is only about a hundred yards in diameter, and at its centre 2J feet 47 thick, (hi lining out to nothing at the edges all round. That would give perhaps 7,000 cubic feet of ore, or (reckoning such porous ore at twice the weight of water to the cubic foot) say 400 tons. Although the estimate is an extrouiely rough one it is enough to show that the amount of ore is unquestionably too small to deserve any further consideration. TIi ere is another exposure of like ore near a clog- maker's house about a mile (half a ri) further south ; but as the common road to it was that day impas- sable on account of the wetness of the swamp, we tried in vain for three hours to find the place by some other way, wandering about hither and thither through the bog with a guide or two ; and finally some time after rain had begun to fall again gave up the search for the present as almost certainly not worth while. Mr. Kuwada had the day before made the most needful measurements. He found the ore in a hole dug in a flat field, about a hundred feet south-westerly from the house and from the Shojin- gawa, which runs here south-easterly. The ore was about three feet from the surface of the ground, and was lens- shaped in section, having a thickness of six-tenths of a foot at the middle and thinning out to a knife edge at the sides of the hole. Above the ore was perhaps a foot of dark brown loam, and above that, soil ; below the ore was perhaps a foot of yellowish clay, and below that sandy clsiy. The amount of ore bore seems to be still so very much less than at the other place, as to be undoubtedly quite insignificant. If the bed had any extent, it would doubtless have been seen in the bank or bed of the stream close by. On the 21st of July as the weather was still raining we kept on with our office work of map-making, instead of going to look at the bog iron ore near Bannaguro and Ishcuri. Towards night word came that you had request- 48- ed by telegraph that. I should make the survey for a coal road from Poronai (or Ichikishiri) to tlie Ishcari river, as had been proposed to me some days before. The visit to the iron ore places (from which so little iu quantity as well as quality of ore now seems likely to result) was therefore put off until some other drier and more conve- nient time ; and preparations for departure up the Ishcari were begun at once. The 22nd of July, we tested our prismatic compasses by the compass of one of the transits and made out a letter of instructions for Messrs. Kuwada, Misawa, Kada, Muyeda and Nishiyama (who go at once to continue the survey of last season northerly from the Bibai valley to- wards the Sorachi, while the others accompany me at first on the road survey.) The rest of the day was taken up with packing baggage and with other preparations for the journey. On the 23rd of July, Messrs. Inagaki, Takahashi, Saka, Shimada, Yamagiwa and myself set out in log canoes from Karekimura on the Toyohira, a league from Sapporo. I succeeded in camping that night on the Ishcari within a league and a half of Horumui. At the Karekimura farms I was struck with the fact that the growing millet which was so abundant last year and year before, was now wholly wanting and replaced "V by barley. On inquiry I was told that barley had been found to yield better than millet ; and that this year a little wheat had been sown. The next forenoon (24 July) we pitched our camp on the bank of the Ishcari a couple of hundred yards above the mouth of the Horumui after a journey of only about 4 miles (l ri) ; and walked about a little in the woods to see how (he land lay. In the afternoon we began the running of a straight trial line towards Poronai as nearly as I could gauss from the best mapping we had. In the 49 evening, however, Mr, Kada came (for Mr. Kuwada's party had th.it dny left Sapporo and had encamped a short distance below ns) ; and gave a most important correction to the information we had hitherto had about the position of Poronai. The assistants who ran the line last summer from Poronai to the Ishcari had been greatly mistaken at Yedo in pointing out the place where they had reached the Ishcari. Mr. Kada had among the laborers with his party met with one who was with the party that cut the line, a man who was familiar with the Ishcari River ; and had learned from him much more exactly the point where the line cut the river. Another Japanese laborer in his party and an Aino in ours confirmed the correction, and the next morning (25 July, Sunday) when the laborers, who had l>een hurried up by a message, arrived, we were able to lay the point down on the map pretty exactly. The position of Poronai on the map was thereby removed nearly two leagues from Horumuibuto, and Bibaibuto became nearer than Horumuibuto by a league or more in a straight line from the Ishcari to the coal. An intelli- gent, gray-bearded Aino in our .party, who had lived all his life in the lower Ishcari valley and had the reputation of being unusually well acquainted with all its features, went with me to an open swamp near our camp, and pointed out Poronai mountain and Ichikishiri valley in the distance in a way that corresponded with the new correct ion of the map. To go straight to Poronai would require crossing the swamp where it was wide ; to go round would make the road still longer. He said that straight across from near Bibaibuto there was no swamp ; so it seemed better to try that decidedly shorter route on firm ground, in spite of the greater length of river navi- gation required. He said moreover that up to Bibaidap the river was not shallower than it is at a place near the 50 mouth of the Ebets, and that it was about ten feet at both places in low water ; and that corresponded well enough with our soundings of last year. It was therefore decid- ed to try a line across to Poronai nearly due east from just below Bibaibuto ; and we arrived here the same eve- ning, having come from Horumuibuto about 13 miles (5J ri). The Ishcari river at Horumuibuto is said to vary fifteen feet between low water (commonly in June and July) to high water; and at the time of our visit there to have been about five feet above low water mark. A new stake there, with the feet marked on it, was observed by some one of our party to give the depth of the water as two feet. On the 26th of July, we began a line about due east (S. 85 E. magnetic) from a point where the river runs due south. We had gone but 800 feet when we came to a large open swamp and could see distant mountains be- fore us. On consulting our Aino who was so familiar with the region, in order to aim the more exactly at the nearest practicable entrance tt> Poronai valley (which we had not exactly on any map), he pointed very positively full 30 degrees to the south, and was sure he was not mistaken. So we began a new line in that direction from the point where the river ran at right angles to it ; but after going more than half a mile, all but the first 800 feet in the open swampy ground, we came to a large pond without outlet, which we were able how- ever to get past by an offset of 400 feet to our right. Wishing to correct our course, if necessary, before going further, we consulted the Aino again ; and though he maintained at first that we were right, he admitted after a while that he had been mistaken and that Poronai was almost exactly in the direction our first line was aimed. The incident strongly confirms what I wrote last -51- year against the infallibitity of the Ainos as guides and of their "sense of direction" which some travellers have been inclined to extol. We returned therefore to the first line, and continued it across the swamp about a mile ; after changing its course to S 8625" E in order to touch just the foot of the nearest low hill that we must pass round to enter the Ikushibets valley below Poronai, as near as we could judge by our glasses. The swamp is by no means impassable on foot, alt.hongh very wet and often ankle deep with water ; but I greatly fear it may prove a serious obstacle to the building of a coal road. Near the middle of the swamp one of the laborers easily thrust down a slender, iron-shod, bamboo surveying rod, ten feet long, full length without meeting anything hard except a slightly hard spot about two feet deep. Nevertheless the slope of the surface, about seven feet in some 3,000 feet from the river bank, which is itself about nine feet high, seems quite enough to drain the surface easily by shallow ditches which would not be long if dug to the river. If the whole or a large portion of the swamp should be drained in that way it seems likely that the ground would become firm, as it is now along the water courses, wherever there are any. Perhaps for a road it would even only be necessary to dig one good ditch on each side the whole length. The experience already had in digging the canal through the swamp north of Sapporo and the one near Hiragishimura may be a guide as to what may be obtained in the way of firm- ness in the present case. The line finally adopted runs about 400 feet north of the northern end of the large pond already mentioned, which is without visible outlet and near the highest part of the swamp and is surrounded by a fringe of trees with rather firmer ground, although the pond is nearly brimful 52 of water, The shores are somewhat curved, and the eastern and western ones about parallel, and perhaps 2CO yards apart, with the hollow of the curve towards the west. It seems at first a little puzzling to account for such a lake in the midst of so wide and nearly level an alluvial plain ; but it has struck me that it may be a portion of what was once a part of the course of the Ishcari. If that portion had been hollowed out unusually deep by a strong current around a bend, it would take longer than the rest of the plain to fill up to the present level, by the widely uniform deposits of mud in times of high water. The Ainos say that the Kawanai and some other small streams, a short distance north of where our line will run, flow southerly into this same wide plain, and end there in a swamp or pond that has no outlet, a remarkable circum- stance in this region that is so far from arid, especially as the Ikushibets is so near on the south and the Ishcari and and Bibai on the west. The small streams in question are also said to have few fish and no masu (salmon-trout ?) in them ; but the water of the ponds without outlet would not seem to be salt. On the 27th of July, (yesterday) and to-day the weather has been very rainy indeed, so that we have had to keep in our tents and do merely office work, report- writing and a little mapping. While I am running the main line with the transit, one of the assistants levels it with a hand level, and two others attend to the chaining and rod holding. The two others have both here and at Horumnibuto made a survey with the prismatic compass of the river shore above and below our .starting point. Camp, Bibaibuto ; 29 July. The clouds cleared away last evening for a little while just at the right tiim- to observe the north star in order to determine the true meridian ; and as it was n,ot later than the convenient 53- hour of half past ten, we made the trial, and had a very satisfactory observation with a good transit theodolite. This morning by reckoning 16 compass readings (in two sets of eight each with the same result for the mean of each set) sighting in the direction of the star ani of our first line from the river bank, and with the telescope sometimes reversed, the mean variation of the needle proves to be 432' west. The azimuth of the star as seen at the greatest eastern elongation was calculated to be 1 51' at this time and place. The variations of the different compass readings from the mean were for the first eight sights,-6,-5,-l, 0, 0, 4, 4, 4 ; and for the second eight,-5,-l,0-,0-,0-,4-,4-,4-. The variation of the com- pass is given on Mr. Wassou's Ishicari River Map as five degrees west in 1873 ; and was found by Mr. Munroe to be the same at the Makumbets Coal Field last September ; but I am quite uninformed as to the special circumstances of their observations, instruments and computations. If no error has crept into either of the three determinations, the variation is decreasing very rapidly year by year and increases rapidly as you go eastward. The weather to-day has been very threatening and the swamp is said to be so deep with water as to be impass- able. We have therefore stayed in camp or near it, and have done some office work, besides finishing by daylight some of the observations and computations for the deter- mination of the meridian and continuing to the river the the corrected course of the line we ran across the Swamp. Towards night I made a canoe trip of an hour up the Bibai River and sketched its course, which was in general south south-easterly. Tonebetsbuto, 12th September. On the 30th of July although the weather was still very threatening and the swamp very wet, I went on an exploring excursion with with two Ainos, leaving the assistants to go on with any office work that might be yet unfinished. The Ainos and I went down the Ishcari in a canoe for a couple of miles to the first bend below Bibaidap, and then went across on foot about S. 74 degrees E. by hand compass about four miles (1J ri) to the Ikushibets. I was still in hopes of finding that the old Aino guide had told me rightly at Horumuibuto that near Bibaidap there was a place where you could cross from the Ishcari to the Ikushi- bets without any swamp ; but this day's excursion clearly proved that it was not so. We had gone hardly 300 yards from the Ishcari before we came to an open swamp which reached to within a few hundred yards of the Ikushibets. Half way across we could see that it was a part of the asme swamp that we had entered in surveying near Bi- baibuto ; and that it reached much further northward and very far southward, apparently as far as to the open swampy ground we had seen at Horumuibuto. In cross- ing we met with two large ponds one near either river, but did not have to turn far aside to avoid them. The pond water was undrinkable from the great amount of vegetable matter in it, Towards the middle of the swamp the ground was a little higher and firmer, and the grass very low to that the walking was comparatively easy ; but towards the Ikushibets side there was much more water and the bushes were higher and higher, so as to make it very troublesome to get along. Towards the north-east along the Ikushibets end of the straight line from Bibaibuto towards Poronai or Ichikishiri, that re- gion of low brush and wet swamp seemed to be very long, owing to the bend in the Ikushibets which makes it for some miles run nearly parallel to the line. About noon we at length (for my own part very much fatigued) reached the Ikushibets, greatly to the surprise of the Ainos, who had all along evidently put no faith in my declaration, that the Ikushibets was before us and not far 55 off, They said that all this swampy ground was kept wet by the water of the Kawanai stream (near Nuppao- manai) which empties into it at the northern end instead of flowing into any river or lake. These immense swamps (and the Ainos said it was the same thing on the western side of the Ishcari) were a new revelation to me ; for I had always hitherto travelled on the rivers themselves, except on the west side of the Ikushibets and near the Horumui where the swamps are comparatively small and infrequent, and the firm level ground very wide-spread. I had until we left Sapporo supposed from all I had seen and could learn by inquiry that it would be quite possible to run a straight railroad line from Horumuibuto to the hills near Porouai. So that not only has the distance in a right line turned out much greater than we had expected, but it is still further increased by the winding about that is needful to avoid the bad swamps ; and the time required for the survey is moreover lengthened by the necessity of finding out their outline and position so as to plan a road that may be as straight and short as the circumstances permit. What I wrote from Sapporo in July about the amount of timber in the main Ishcari valley and the number of saw mills it might probably supply must also be very much modified on account of the swamp. For, instead of there being a heavy forest (as I supposed) over at least a half of the great plain of 600 square miles, it turns out that the timber land is in general only a fringe about 300 yards wide along the river banks.' Even allowing for the upper parts of the streams outside of the plain it seems hardly probable that the good timber land is more than a tenth part of the 600 square miles. It is commonly the case, too, that timber grown in moist bottom lands is of inferior quality and I hear that in fact the timber of Yesso is considered poorer than that of 56 Nippon. The great timber resources of Hokkaido prove therefore to be far less than we had hoped. Nevertheless several saw mills like those at Sapporo could no doubt find plenty of work to do for many years ; especially if it be not thought necessary greatly to economise what tim- ber there is. The amount of rich land that only needs clearing of trees to become good farming land is at the same time found to be much less than I had always supposed. It is true that the open swamp lands need no clearing, and in / so far there is a great saving of labor ; but their present appearance is very barren. Yet I find it difficult to be- lieve (in the absence of any experimental proof) that the swamps would not by drainage become fine farming laud ; for wherever a watercourse, even though small, is found its banks are for some distance firm ground covered with a very rich growth of weeds, wild hemp or ferns. The surface of the swamps is so high (a dozen feet or more) above the larger rivers and the rivers are so near, and (as we found by levelling at Bibaibuto) the surface rises so rapidly (say two feet in a thousand) in going from the top of the river bank towards the middle of the swamp ; that it seems there can be no serious difficulty in drain- age. It is an experiment that it would be well worth while for the Kaitakushi to make. After eating our luncheon on the bank of the Ikushibets and resting a while, we returned to the Ishcari almost by the same way that we came. We however avoided a little of the swamp by following for a short distance near the Ikushibets the line lately cut, surveyed and staked by Mr. Takabatake for a road from Horumuibuto to Poronai, which we here came upon for the first time, and roughly surveyed for a few hundred yards. At Sapporo no one had thought it worth while to mention to me that such a line had been cut and surveyed and perhaps mapped ; -57- but it would seem natural to have put me at the outset in possession of all such facts, which might possibly have a bearing upon our undertaking. We reached camp again near Bibaibuto late in the afternoon well tired out ; and found our companions look- ing at the skin of a large yellow or brown bear that had just been brought in by some of the Ainos. On our way past Bibaidap we found the high water pouring across the narrow low neck. It seemed pretty clear that no railroad could be built from Bibaibuto across to Porouai without at least very great expense in draining properly so wide a swamp ; expense enough at any rate to overbalance the gain of a league in distance as compared with a line from Horumuibuto, especially when the additional 13 miles (oj ri) of river navigation was considered. Larger vessels too could be brought to Horumuibuto than to Bibaibuto if (according to the account of the Ainos, and I have not Lt. Day's map to refer to for corroboration) if only for a short distance near Ebetsbuto the Ishcari should be deepened. But above Horumuibuto the river grows gradually shallow so that it would probably be impracticable to deepen it through the long space required, so as to enable much larger vessels to go up to the Bibai. For an exploratory line to find out by surveying the real position of Poronai with referrence to Horumuibuto, the line already so well cut out and staked by Mr. Takabatake offered great ad- vantages. The next morning (31st July), we went therefore in our canoes to Horumuibuto, and arrived there a little be- fore noon. In the afternoon we began surveying Mr. Takabatake's line for exploratory purposes, and as it was already pretty well cut and staked we easily ran more than a mile before night* The weather had at length be- 58 come fine, and we went on with the survey day after day; but after some half a dozen miles left Mr. Takabatake's line on the right (western) bank of the Ikushibets in order on the other side to cut across the great bends of the stream of which I had found the general shape by my rough sketching last year and year before. From time to time our camp was removed, the fourth and last time to Poronaibuto; and we finally reached the upper coal places early in the afternoon of the 7th of August, just a week after starting from Horumuibuto and found we had run in all 20.7 miles (8 ri 13 cho); each day as follows: 31st July 5,912 feet ; 1 Aug. 21,587 feet ; 2 Aug. 11,760 feet ; 3 Aug. 5,066 feet ; 4 Aug. 24,559 feet; 5 Aug. 14,147 feet; 6 Aug. 13,697 feet ; 7 Aug. 11,665 feet; in all 108,394 feet and averaging about three miles (li ri) a day. (By Mr. Takabatake's line it is said to be 8| ri to the same point). We had besides lost a little time from surveying by moving once or twice with the camp and by some mapping we had done. Most of the mapping had however been put off lest some rainy weather should come ; and had now at last in spite of fair weather to be attended to before the course of the railroad could be planned and staked out on the ground. The 8th and 9th of August we were all therefore very busily occupied with office work. During the surveying two of the assistants had attended to the chain- ing and sometimes to the rod holding, while another followed us up with the hand level. My intention was to have him go over the railroad line after we had finished running it and level it carefully with our transit level the best instrument we have at command. The two other assistants helped with the prismatic compass and pacing by running short side lines from our main line to the edge of the swamps, or along the banks of the main streams or the edges of high grouud, Especially iu the 59 Poronai valley a good deal of such work was needed in order to make out its shape fully, so as to see whereabouts a railroad line could be run without making the grading too costly or the length needlessly great. That valley indeed turned out to be much less simple in that respect than I had .supposed from the limited view furnished by walking over the path through the woods ; and it was clearly impossible to lay out a line even with much wind- ing that should be wholly within a narrow flat along the .stream ; for in many places there is no such flat. Hakodate; 27th Sept. The 8th of August (Sunday) was wholly spent in office work; and so was the 9th. On the 10th the weather was cloudy and threatening; but after arranging office work for assistants I went with some coolies to the Poronai cf>al places and had a little digging done. For, as I was on the spot, it seemed best to do a little geological work that was desirable and to point out definitely the place where it would be best for serious coal mining to begin. We quickly found by a little careful examination that the coal beds called "L602ca" and " L602 ba" in my letter transmitting Mr. Munroe's re- port on the assays of Yesso coals must be one and the same bed, and therefore probably on the average not so thick as "L602 ca" had seemed to be. The coal " L602 a " is now so opened as to be easier to measure than it was two years ago and also proves to be some- what thinner than had been supposed, to be namely, about 4,2 feet thick. It turned out therefore that there was no object as regards thickness or other merits in making the first mine further up stream than the nearest and geologically uppermost workable coal bed, that of L576 i. The old opening at that point has its coal now covered up by a slide of earth from above ; but there will be no difficulty in reopening it, and it will be a good place to begin serious mining by a drift that will run into 60 the hill northeasterly and soon open up a fine body of good coal above water level. On the opposite side of the brook from that point a drift might also be run southwesterly ; but as the hill is low only little coal above water level would be opened up before reaching the other branch of the main stream within a few hundred yards. That comparatively small quantity of coal (comparatively poor also, because so near the out crop) may be neglected for the present, or until workings below water level make it desirable to have that portion of the bed drained as low as possible to save pumping. We went therefore to look for the same coal bed on the south-westerly side of the branch stream, where however it was not exposed two years ago. But now it had become well uncovered there and of good thickness and quality in the bed of the brook, and we dug hopefully into the bank alongside yet without success before the approach of night obliged us to return to camp. Taking advantage of the fact that I was in this region I made arrangements for a visit to the Nuppaornanai coal exposures (about a ri distant) mapped by my assistants last year, but in regard to whose thickness and dip they had much doubt owing to special difficulties ; and some coolies went in advance to reopen the places for me as well as they could. The llth of August was rainy in the morning and very threatening almost all the rest of the day; so it was given up to office work. The 12th of August was spent in like manner at office work; since in the morning it was threat- ening very strongly to rain, though none fell until afternoon. As our camp was so far (one ri) from the coal, where the staking out of the rail road should begin, it was not worth while to go so far with the probability so great of having to return at once, especially as there was plenty of office work that was still pressing, The 13th of August was 61 very rainy and was given to office work. The 14th it rained several times and I did office work, but some of the assistants ventured out to do a little surveying near by that was needed, and were caught in the rain. On the loth of August (Sunday) the weather at length was better, though doubtful, and with one assistant and some coolies I went to look at the Nuppaomanai coals leaving the rest of the assistants busy at office work. With some difficulty and digging we succeeded in making out satisfactorily the dip and thickness and mining merits of all the coal exposures we visited. It had seemed possible that it might be desirable after all to bring the railroad here for the first mines instead of to Poronai, but the day's work showed clearly that it was not so. The coal beds had, owing to close folding together and im- perfect exposure of dip, been taken to be much thicker than they really were, and in that respect no better than the Poronai coals ; in fact the beds seemed to be the same. But at that part of Nuppaomanai the dips are very steep indeed, and that makes the beds more un- favorable for working than those at Poronai. On the 16th of August, then, after a little office work in the morning we went to the Poronai coal to begin the running of the railroad ; and first to set the coolies at work again opening the coal. Some of them had been digging there the day before at the exposure in the brook and had clearly uncovered the edge towards the bank so that a sharply cut fault could be seen remarkably well, the reason of our difficulty the former day in finding the coal close by in the bank. It was now quite uncertain how far the continuation of the bed might be removed, but as there was a leader of coal in the fault leading northerly we dug at several points in that direction with- out success. With' the interruption to the surveying that was caused by the coal search and digging, little more, 62 than a mere beginning was made before it was necessary to set out for camp again ; though enough was done to disclose an important error in the former year's rough surveying on which our present plan was based at that point. On the 17th of August the coal digging and the survey- ing were continued, both under disadvantage from the interruptions caused by the other. The best coolies we had to spare for the coal search were so unused to that kind of work that a good part of their labor was lost even when you could stand and watch them and direct almost every stroke they made ; but when they were left to themselves it was even far worse. The coal bed was therefore not found that day, and only a few hundred feet of railroad curves in the woods over rough ground were staked out. The 18th of August was rainy again though less so in the end than it had threatened to be, and I occupied my- self all day with office work. On the 19th of August, a few hundred feet more of railroad curves were staked out, and some digging for the coal was done, both under the same disadvantages as before. The 20th was again rainy and still more threa- tening, after heavy rains in the night, and we all busied ourselves with office work ; and the same was the case on the 21st. The 22nd was still very threatening, es- pecially in the opinion of our most weather-wise man, an old Aino ; and as it was Sunday, too, we took at length a day of rest with but little office work, as what was most pressing had already been done. On the 23rd of August we did some additional exploratory surveying, and plotted and staked out a few hundred feet of railroad curve, besides going on with the search for the coal bed. The leader of coal in the fault had proved to come from an- 63 other, worthless, upper bed, showing the fault to be in the opposite direction from what had at first seemed to be the fact; and now we at last found the bed, on the southerly side. Much digging however seemed necessary to open it well. On the 24th some digging was done, though at last, in my absence, not quite enough to open the bed well ; and the railroad line, in spite of interruption from the digging and of very rough ground and thick woods that required much cutting, at length fairly got away from the immediate neighborhood of the mines and advanced 1,500 feet. Our chain men and rodmen and wood choppers were getting a little readier at the new work required of them. On the 25th we staked out about 2,300 feet of the line ; on the 26th, 2,200 feet including 700 feet of better laying out of the previous day's work. Our exploratory compass survey had been so rapid as here and there to require a second staking of the line, after the more exact knowledge obtained by the first staking ; yet a more minute exact survey in the beginning would on the whole have required much more time. On the 27th we ran 2,900 feet of the line ; on the 28th, 3,700, including 1,000 of correction and a little office work ; and had now reached the neighborhood of our camp, so that much less time and labor were daily lost in going to and from it. On the 29th of August (Sunday) it threatened to rain in the morning, but I went with a couple of coolies to the coal digging to see how it had been left ; and convinced myself still more fully that it was the right place to begin a mine on the bed although not yet well opened. The bed measures 4.4 feet of good, solid coal, with 0.9 foot of bad bony coal below that, and some 2 feet of light gray fire clay below that. It is very possible that the fire clay may prove valuable for making fire bricks, for which the material is not very abundant in Japan, It could bo mined here easily in connection with the coal anc^give ample height to the mine gangways. We left a large post there (" B") with marks to show that it was the place to open a mine. A similar stake (" A") had heen set up at " L 576 i," the place to mine the same bed on the other branch of the brook. A branch of the railroad line comes very near to either place. In the afternoon of the same day, as the weather had cleared up, we went on with the surveying and ran 1,200 feet of the railroad line. On the 30th of August it was rainy or very threatening all day and we attended to office work in camp. On the 31st, we ran 1,900 feet of the line iii the morning after the weather had become a little promising ; but the work was wholly a better laying out of what had already been run once. We returned to camp for luncheon and a little office work, and when ready to start out again were prevent- ed by rain that lasted the rest of the day. On the 1st of September it was rainy at times all day, and we stayed in camp and did a little office work. On the 2nd, with fair weather, we ran 3,100 feet, of which 500 was an improvement of previous running. On the 3rd, we ran 2,000 feet and had our camp removed from Poro- naibuto to Ichikishiributo. On the 4th, we ran 5,500 feet of the line, including 1,700 of better laying out of former work. We had now got so far away from the intricacies and irregularities of the Poronai valley that we could go in a straight line most of the time, without having to stop and turn at every hundred feet as we had had to almost always hitherto ; and the steep narrow ravines were get- ting fewer, so that most of the time we had nearly level ground and were only delayed by the cutting of the still rather thick woods. On the 5th of September, (Sunday) it rained heavily, and we had at last another day of rest, with but little of- -65 flee work to do. On the 6tb, although the weather was rather threatening at first, we ran 8,700 feet of the line, all straight and nearly level, but with some special delays, as in crossing the Ichikishiri brook. On returning to camp we found that two of the assistants had come back, who about five days before had gone to make a rough exploratory survey for a short route up the Tonebets valley or even further east. On the 7th, they set out again to do additional surveying against our coming. The same day, we ran 7,400 feet, including some curves ; and had our camp moved a few miles further down the Ikushibets. On the 8th, it was very rainy in the morn- ing and very threatening the rest of the day ; and we stayed in camp, but I had a good chance to put the transit in very good adjustment again. On the 9th, we ran 6,350 feet, partly curves, and were driven into camp by heavy rain in the afternoon. On the 10th, we ran 8,250 feet, partly curving ; and had our camp removed to Tonebetsbuto. On the llth, it was very rainy again all day, and we stayed in camp, and busied ourselves with office work. On the 12th, (Sunday) it was very rainy still, most of the day ; and we stayed in camp. I wrote a portion of the rough draft of this report. On the 13th, we ran 7,000 feet, partly curved, and ended near our camp. On the 14th, we ran 7,000 feet, in good part curved, crossing the Ikushibets to the western bank; and having our camp removed a few miles down stream. On the 15th, we ran 9,000 feet, mostly straight and with the woods rather more open, and ended close by our camp. On the 16th, we ran 1 1,300 feet, partly curved; and had our camp removed to the place where we ended. On t he 17th and 18th it rained heavily, and we staid in camp; but I did a little office work, and, when it had stopped raining on the afternoon of the 18th, did a little rough surveying near camp. These frequent heavy 66 rains bad raised the streams very much, and the present flood was the highest we had seen. The water rose with- in two or three feet of the top of the bank where we were encamped; mid the lower grounds and the edges of the swamps we had to survey across were very wet indeed. On the 19th, however, we ran the remaining 6,400 feet (in good part curved) to Horumuibuto, having besides to go twice over a part of the lower end, owing to errors in previous rough surveying there, making 2,600 feet addi- tional, or 9,000 in all. We finished about four o'clock* and, as soon as we could exchange the clothes we had been wading in for drier ones, we embarked in our canoes and went 8J miles (3J ri) down stream to Tsuishcari* where we encamped at night fall. For I had indirectly heard that you wished me to return to Yedo this month, and only too gladly hastened to do so. Hakodate, 28th September. We had, indeed, from the very beginning, as you may see by the foregoing account, worked as busily as we could, without even allowing our- selves one day of rest in the week when the weather was good or when there was office work to do; and each day's work commonly lasted from seven o'clock in the morning until six at night. We hoped by such industry to make up in some measure for the unex- pected length of the line (seven ri instead of five, a difference of forty per cent.), and for the unexpected difficulties of the ground, and for the unusual raininess of the season. From the time of leaving Sapporo until the end of the survey twenty days were lost from the field work by rainy weather, 17 of which were lost after our beginning the survey from Horurauibuto, indeed after our reaching Poronai ; and fully four more days were taken up by geological work ; so that only 29 days of fair weather remained for the railroad survey, including at least two or three that had to be spent in mapping. The 67 railroad line from Yedo to Yokohama is of just about the same length and through an open, unwooded and much more level country ; you can perhaps learn on inquiry how long it took to lay it out and how many foreigners were employed on the work. We may have lost as much as a day or two in all by onr inexperience ; / for, not only were my assistants unused to that work, but it was the first railroad line that I had ever laid out, and many practical details that are so familiar to professed railroad engineers as to be gone through almost mechani- cally with scarcely a thought had to be both learned and even at first studied out by myself, with very few hints from any books I happened to have with me. The novelty of the work gave it in fact, a charm to us, and I was very glad to get a little experience in a branch of surveying that was still so new to me ; and to the young assistants "all is fish that comes to their net." I should nevertheless have hardly been willing to undertake out of complaisance a piece of work so much out of my line, if I had known beforehand that it, together with the bad weather, would have taken up so fully the whole season for geological field work ; since my services might be more valuable in a geological way and there were one or two trips that I was anxious to make this year. But the bad weather even there would have been a great draw- back. As for the desirableness of making the railroad survey at all, I was, strangely enough, not consulted at all, although I was given to understand at Yedo that my presence in Sapporo was required for such a consultation. On arriving at Sapporo I found there only comparatively inferior officials who in a couple of days showed me a telegram which said that you " consented" to the railroad survey ; at whose request I did not learn. After several days more (owing to a break in the tele- 68 graph) one of those officials verbally asked me to make the survey. I beg that in future such important orders and even less important ones may come to me direct from \X yourself and in writing. The railroad line from near the stake "B" to Horumui- buto is 92,425 feet long or 17-^ miles (about 7 ri) ; and there is besides a branch of 900 feet towards the stake "A." The upper end of the line for a ri or so will require a little heavy cutting and filling here and there ; but the rest is mostly very flat, with here and there, a narrow ravine or brook to cross and one bridge of a hundred feet or so on the Ikushibets. The grades are uniformly downward towards Ilorumuibuto and are for the most part very gentle, but the steepest at the upper end is about one in fifty or a hundred feet to the mile for a few hundred feet. To build the road and stock it with locomotives and cars would cost perhaps $700,000 ; on which the interest at ten per cent would be $70,000 a year, a tax of seventy cents a ton on a yearly product of 100,000 tons, the yield of a good colliery. If, however, the road should be worked at first with horses instead of steam, it could be built with lighter iron rails and other- wise somewhat cheaper, and the stocking of it would cost much less. The first cost might in that way be reduced perhaps to $250,000 or $300,000 ; on which the interest at ten per cent, would be only $25,000 or $30,000 or a tax of 25 or 30 cents a ton on 100,000 tons. As the grade is downward all the way from the mines, a light car could be made upon which two horses could travel all the way to Horumuibuto along with a driver and a car loaded with five tons of coal (if some portions do not prove too level), and the same horses and driver could bring back both cars empty the same day to the mines ; making a cost of perhaps 20 or 25 cents for the carriage of each ton of coal j or, together with the interest, 50 69 cents in all, not counting repairs to the road and cars. For a yearly product of 100,000 tons it would therefore be much cheaper to use horses than steam. For 200,000 tons a year the cost by horse power would still be some- what less than that by steam ; for the $70,000 interest required for steam power would be divided by a larger number and become only 35 cents a ton and the mere transportation (not counting repairs to the road) would be perhaps ten cents a ton additional, or 45 cents in all, whereas the horse power would cost as before, say 23 cents a ton besides the interest say 14 cents a ton ; or 37 cents a ton in all. But for 300,000 tons a year steam would become about as cheap as horses ; for the yearly interest on the first cost would become only some 23 cents a ton which added to the ten cents would make but 33 cents a ton in all ; whereas the horses would cost in like manner 23 cents a ton besides nine cents for interest, or 32 cents a ton in all. It must not be forgotten that these amounts (owing to repairs and such expenses) are not the full cost of carrying the coal. The calculation is a very rough one ; but it is clearly enough to be seen that horse power will be cheapest for a yield of less than 300,000 tons a year, and that the larger the yield the less the cost for each ton, though diminishing more and more slightly as the number of tons becomes very large. Even with a very large yield it is likely that the whole cost including repairs and everything would be 25 cents a ton (perhaps even 30) for carrying the coal from Poronai to Horumui- buto ; for the first few years with a comparatively small yield it would probably be at least 50 cents a ton. This even is very far less than what it would cost to carry the coal by log canoes or by horse power without a railroad (which some of the Sapporo officials seem to have thought of). As compared with the Kayanoma mines there is also to J 70 be considered the greater distance that the coal has to be carried by water towards any market ; for the Poronai coal would have to go right past Kayanoma. Sufficiently large steam vessels could no doubt carry the coal direct from Horumuibuto down the Ishcari to its mouth and by sea to Yokohama or any other port. But the time and distance between Horumuibuto and Kayanoma Avould cause an expense of perhaps 25 cents a ton for the coal. Adding that to the 50 cents for carriage by rail from Poronai to Horumuibuto the cost would be 75 cents a ton against the cost of carrying the Kayanoma coal by a down grade road two miles long, without steam, perhaps even without horses, if, as is probable, arrangements could be made by which the loaded cars would pull up the empty ones. It is further to be remembered that the navigation of the Ishcari river is closed by ice during four months of the year ; so that the coal dug in the winter would have to be stacked in large heaps, exposed to the weather for several months, and consequently deteriorating in quality. If however a rail road should be built at some future time all the way from the mines to the mouth of the Ishcari, coal might be shipped throughout the year ; and, if the swamps admit of building a railroad straight across them, the distance would not be very great. It seems therefore on the whole highly probable that in spite of the superior quality of the coal of the Ishcari valley it will be most advisable to begin active coal mining more especially at Kayanoma. Even if the little breakwater and artificial harbor at Shibui should be built for that purpose, the cost would be far less than that of the Poronai railroad. The Furushiki coal at Kayanoma, though long abandoned, is by far the best caking coal yet found in Yesso, and therefore the most suitable for the demands of iron furnaces ; and can be so mixed with other 71 Kayanoma coals as to make good coke out of a large pro- portion of them all. It is likely that more care in mining may very much reduce the amount of slate and con- sequently of ashes in the Kayauoma coals ; and some of the beds or parts of beds are of quite fair quality in that respect. It many even be worth while to crush and wash some of the coal, so as to purify it from the injurious stony particles before coking ; and such washing is said at one of the American collieries to cause an additional expense of only 15 cents a ton. The Kayanoma coal field however is very much smaller than the one east of the Ishcari River, so that while working at first chiefly at Kayanoma, where the mines already opened would give a certain advantage for arriving quickly at a handsome yearly yield, mining might also be begun at Poronai, which would in spite of additional cost of carriage, help to supply the constantly increasing de- mand for coal, and would have the advantage of superior quality. We ran the railroad line as if for steam power, with curves of a radius large enough for locomotives, thinking that they would be needed within a few years and that it would be cheapest on the whole to count on them from the outset ; but for coal cars and horse power alone sharper curves might in some places be allowed and con- sequently greater cheapness of building, as in winding along a hill side or round the edge of a swamp or a bend in a brook. For a bridle path or wagon road the best line would still further differ, as the constant down grade from the mines could in some places be abandoned for a more direct course with a slight up grade ; and in other places the cost of heavy grading would not be justified for such a road, though distance should be saved thereby. The best line for a wagon road would however not be very far from the railroad, and would be decidedly shorter 72 than the one run by Mr. Takabatake ; and can no doubt readily be laid down on the map we shall make of our work. On the 20th of September, while the five assistants went direct to Sapporo by the much swollen Toyohira River, my quarter master and I, with two coolies and two Aino boatmen, went down the Ishcari to visit the iron ore of Oyafuru near Ishcaributo and at Utsunai and at Ban- naguro. Our baggage, servants and other attendants also went with us as far as Sapporobuto, but went thence up the Shiuoro to the village of the same name, and waited for us there. On the way down the Ishcari I was struck with the increased populousness and activity of appearance of its banks from Tsuishcari to Sapporobuto since two years ago, when in the summer it seemed almost uninha- bited. Now we found a great number of very large grass houses, and the men were busy every where making preparations for the salmon fishing now near at hand. Large boats and nets were numerous. Above Tsuishcari there are no such fishing houses. We reached the upper end of Oyafuru, on the northerly bank a ri above Ishcaributo, about noon, and on landing found that some of the ore was close by. It lies on the surface of the ground, in some places it is said to be as much as a foot below it, in small patches of a few yards in diameter here and there throughout the farming settlement of half a ri in length and from the river bank back to the uncleared woods ; through a space, that is, of perhaps 150 acres. A very intelligent inhabitant, much more familiar with the whole ground than I could possibly become without a lengthy survey, estimated that the ore covered about a tenth of the whole of that surface, or say 15 acres (18,000 tsubo) ; and that is probably not underrating the extent. The thickness varies, and is at most about a foot and a half ; and the ore is so porous as 73 to have comparatively little weight by the cubic foot, perhaps at a guess one hundred weight. If the average thickness of the 15 acres of ore should be one third of a foot, or say equal to 5 acres of one foot in thickness, the whole amount of ore would be only about 11,000 tons ; and at most it can hardly be more than 20,000 tons. So small an amount is quite too insignificant to justify build- ing furnaces expressly for its smelting ; but if furnaces should ever be built for smelting other ore with the coal of the Ishcari velley it may very well be worth while to gather what there is of such easily accessible ore as that of Oyafuru ; if its quality from the presence of phosphorus should not be so low as to make it too bad to mix with the other ore. The quantity on clearing the woods further from the river may prove to be some what greater. The richness and quality and amount of phosphorus are probably very closely like those of the ore of Hiragishi- mura, described above, which it closely resembles ; and the origin was doubtless the same, although at Oyafuru the laud is not now swampy. From Oyafuru we worked our way slowly against the current of the swollen Ishcari one ri up stream to Utsunai, on the southerly shore ; and after some delay found that the ore place was quite near to where we had landed. It proved however to be in a swamp and at the moment under water, so that nothing could be seen even if we waded to it. It had already been described to us by an inhabitant as having extremely little ore compared with what was found at the upper end of Bannaguro, which is far less than that at Oyafuru ; so that the amount of ore is no doubt wholly insignificant. It is described as lying in small patches, say a couple of yards in diameter at most, within a space of perhaps 40 yards across. It is called 1J ri from Ishcaributo and 2 ri from Shinoro and is close by the road between those places. -74- We walked then to the upper end of Bannaguro, three miles (" 1 ri and 8 cho ") from Shinoro on the same road, and were shown there two or three little patches a yard or two in diameter in a garden where lumps of the same ore from the size of a fist down were exposed on the surface. Behind the house close by was another patch four or five yards in diameter, where the ore opened at one point proved to be 0.8 foot in diameter. On the road a couple of hundred yards towards Shinoro there were lumps again up to even a foot and a half long, through a space of some 20 yards long ; and there was said to be more of it on the bank of the Ishcari, a hundred yards distant. Again about three quarters of a mile from Bannaguro towards Shiuoro, where a new road has been begun, there are lumps of ore up to two feet in length, through a space about ten yards long. The appearance and probably the quality are the same in these Banuaguro ores as in the Oyafuru and Hiragishimura ones ; but the amount is still far more insignificant, so that it deserves no consideration at all. We walked on to Shinoro and arrived there about half past four. I began to look with great admiration on the new road just mentioned, as a case where the Kaitakushi had begun to " open up" the country in an efficient way, and at a point where such facility of inter-communication must be especially desirable ; when suddenly after a few / hundred yards the new road came to an end. Perhaps ^ wood is trusted to rather too much for holding up the sides of a causeway through a swamp ; for in a few years rotting will necessarily set in. In passing through Bannaguro from end to end, I thought I could perceive a decided advance in the prosperity of its inhabitants since my visit there two years ago with General Capron. We saw this time a number of pretty well dressed men, women and children, and a number of small shops and 75 itinerant merchants, as if something more than a mere subsistence had been gained from the soil. The children looked well fed and happy. After waiting nearly an hour in vain at Shinoro for iny horse, which had been taken to Ishcari for me, and sent for again ; and after succeeding in getting some of our baggage started on the few packhorses that could be found, I started on foot again for Sapporo, 3J ri ; and arrived there about eight o'clock: some of the others with the remaining baggage did not arrive until an hour or more later. The whole distance travelled by me in the day was 36 miles (14J ri) ; of which 22J miles (9 ri) were by canoe and. 13^ miles (5J- ri) were on foot. We found that the five assistants who had been survey- ing towards the Sorachi had arrived the night before in compliance with the instructions I had lately sent them. In their survey they had reached Naie and within a ri or two of the Sorachi coal, and had found coal at several places on their way, in some places up to six feet in thick- ness ; practically proving the uninterrupted continuity of the coal field all the way from Poronai to the Sorachi. They had been much delayed by the remarkable wetness of the season, and by the consequent ill health of some of their number. On the 21st of September towards noon we set out for Hakodate and reached Chitose, 24 miles (9| ri) that day. The next day (22nd September) in spite of some rain we rode on to Shiraoi, 31 miles (12^ ri) ; and on the 23rd with good weather rode to Tokarumui, 30 miles (12 ri). It is a tedious jour- ney over those comparatively barren plains of pumice ; which seem likely always to remain so, since the Tarumai volcano will probably long continue to throw out showers of pumice from time to time to cover up any thin soil that may accumulate. The idea of ever making Tokarumui the -76- port of Sapporo seems enormously preposterous ; an ad- mirable harbour to be sure, but separated by eighty-five miles of almost uninhabited and uninhabitable country from the metropolis, a village now of perhaps 1,500 inha- bitants and probably never destined to be a populous / city ! Otarunai stands a much better chance to hold such a position permanently ; but can not be the true outlet of the Ishcari valley (and consequently the future port of Sapporo) without a railroad ; and that for the nine miles next to Otaruuai, would be more difficult and costly than the building and keeping in repair of an excellent artificial harbour entrance at Ishcari, which is therefore destined undoubtedly to be the great port. We found the little ferry steamer out of order and not running to Mori, so we took a small junk, and having pushed to sea at six o'clock on the morning of the 24th, with sculling at times and with the sail at other times we succeeded in reaching Mori, 25 miles (10 ri), at six in the evening. On the 25th of September we rode from Mori to Hako- date 29 miles (llf ri). The New Road proved to be in better condition than I had ever seen it, with good bridges all the way and every thing in good order, except two very small bridges, one of which is too narrow for wag- gons, and the other is in bad condition even for horses. With a good prospect that the road would be kept in such good repair, it would undoubtedly be worth while to put on it at least one daily line of waggons for the carriage of the- goods now carried across by pack horses. The road between Sapporo and Tokarumui was also mostly in good order, except that almost every bridge was under- going renewal, and could not at the moment be crossed. There seemed however to be none begun at Horobets. We found no steamer for Yokohama here after all, and 77 v so have had to wait. The 26th of September was Sun- day, .and we took it as a day of rest. A violent storm that had been threatening the day before finally broke with rain and high wind, and \ve congratulated ourselves that onr exertions had brought ns here in time to escape it. The 27th and to-dny (28th) I have been busy report writing. Hakodate; 29th September. I have this season learned but little additional in regard to the Ainos, we had so few with ns and there was such a want of leisure. I find, however, on inquiry of the quartermaster, who is a native of Yesso, I understand, and has seen a great deal of the Ainos and knows their language, that some statements in regard to them that have lately come under my eye in the excellent English periodical called Nature (Vol. IX, p. 428 : 2 April, 1874.) are not quite correct ; and some of my assistants are also able to add some information. He has never heard of the traditional origin of the Aino race represented by the picture of a woman in a cave weeping to whom a dog is bringing a red flower ; and it is possibly merely the illustration to some Japanese tradition or popular fable. It is said that the Ainos of different places have quite different stories about their origin. The Ainos do carry burdens on their back, though with the help commonly of the band across the forehead. The tattooing of the lips of the women is commonly completed at the time of marriage, though begun .often at a very early age ; but the netlike tattooing on the back of the hands or lower arms is not an invariable accompaniment. The Aiuos have stringed musical instruments of three, five and six strings ; and the strings are made of the sinews of dead whales that have been cast up on the shore. The Aiuos do not hunt the whale but respect it, saying that it feeds on herring, which consequently flee before it into the shallow water near laud where the -78- Ainos take them, They say, too, that the whale eats the sardine (iwashi), a hundred at once. The Ainos do go through with some propitiatory ceremony before eating the flesh of a bear or even of a deer they have killed ; so as not afterwards to be harmed by its spirit. They bring the bear's head home and fix it on a pole near their dwelling ; a deer's head they wrap in grass and leave behind in the woods or they set it up on a pole there. The collection of sea-weed and other fishery products for sale to the Japanese is, according to my observation, a step in their civilization above their fully wild state ; just as in some villages they have learned a little of husbandry from the Japanese. But a somewhat educated Aino at Yedo once told me that there was no word in their language for " farmer " or " husbandman." The Ainos can hardly be said to have been "driven inland by the fringe of Japanese settlements all round the coast ;" for the Aino villages are still mostly on the coast, and very few indeed live inland. They are said to have been driven gradually northward from at least the central part of Nippon ; and are now rare in the most southern part of Yesso. The Ainos, it appears, have a great disgust at snakes, perhaps even a fear of them, and I saw it shown more than once this summer ; yet the most poisonous of the Ycsso snakes appears not to be very dangerously so. It is called the " mamushi," and according to my memory closely resembles the American rattle-snake, though smaller. We found one on a morning in August, uearlchiki.shirilmto, and the coolies killed it, and even after that in spite of our laughter an old Aino with us ran away with horror. The snake was some two feet and a half long, thick and mottled with brown. On looking for any trace there might be of a rattle at the end of the tail, there proved in fact to be a horny sharp point perhaps au eighth of an inch -79- long or less, The bite is said not to be fatal, though it may cause a few day's sickness. Another day I saw at Poronai a snake that resembles the American brown adder, though of a brighter, more reddish color ; and was told that its bite was poisonous, but less so than that of the mamushi. Such resemblances between the snakes of north-eastern America and of Yesso would seem to correspond to like resemblances between the plants, that have so long been remarked. The number of and boldness, or tameness of mice, apparently of several kinds, that we have found this season at almost every camping ground, and while surveying in the woods, and even once swimming in the river, have been quite astonishing. We have also seen a number of squirrels ; and among them a striped one much like one we have in America ; and a black one. The insects, in this wet season have seemed especially numerous and various. Some of these smaller natural history objects have been preserved in carbolic acid by the assistants, particularly by Mr. Inagaki. In crossing Volcano Bay the other day some half a dozen fishes perhaps 15 or 20 feet long, which we took at first for small whales, passed close by us, rising to the surface and diving below, some of them going under our little junk of about nine tons. The boatmen, who beat on the side of the junk to make a loud noise so as to frighten them off, said they were not whales but Jcamigiri (Jcami above, and kiri cutting) and that a stout, forward curved fin on their back was stiff and sharp, and that with it they would attack and kill a whale as with a sword. Yedo, 7th October. On the 29th of September I wrote a part of this report ; and on the 30th was also busied a little in connection with it, and our heaviest luggage was put aboard the steamer. On the 1st of October we pack- ed up the rest of our luggage and with it towards night went aboard the Taiheimaru, which with favorable wea- 80 ther brought us in a little less than three days to Yoko- hama. The night of our arrival (4th Oct.) some of us came at once to Yedo ; the others owing to the lateness of the hour, waited at Yokohama until the next morning. I have to express great satisfaction at the fidelity and industry of my geological assistants, Messrs. Inagaki, Kuwada, Misawa, Takahashi, Kada, Saka, Shimada, Yamagiwa, Mayeda and Nishiyama and am most thank- ful for the efficient aid they have given. The five that were with me in the field were kept very hard at work almost constantly ; hut were always ready for any un- usual exertion that was required. The other five, though not under my eye, were, I doubt not, equally faithful. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, BENJ. SMITH LYMAN, Chief Geologist and Mining Engineer to tlie Kaitalmslii. GEOLOGICAL SIJEYEY OF HOKKAIDO. RE POET ON THE MAKUMBETS COAL FIELD, SHIDZUNAI DISTRICT, -HIDAKA PROVINCE, YESSO; ACCOMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF A ROUGH SURVEY ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER TO THE KAITAKUSHI. TOKEI: PUBLISHED BY THE KAITAKUSHI, 1876. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. REPORT ON THE MAKUMBETS COAL FIELD, SHIDZUNAI DISTRICT, HIDAKA PROVINCE, YESSO ; ACCOM- PANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF A ROUGH SURVEY ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER The Makumbets and Saukebibai Reports of some copies were by mistake paged separately. A few such copies together with the Report of Progress were dis- tributed from April to Juiie, 1876, andean now be united to the remainder. 1. Situation. The Makumbets Coal Field lies in the valley of the Makumbets, a small branch of the Shibi- chari River, in the Shidzunai District of Hidaka Province, Yesso ; and is about a mile (or half a ri) above (north-east of) the mouth of the Makumbets, and about 11 miles (41 ri) north-east by river from Shibichari village on the sea coast at the mouth of the stream of that name. That village is nearly half way from Niikap on the west to Shidzimai on the east, about five rniles (2 ri) from either; and is about 27 miles (10J ri) north-westerly along the coast from Uragawa. The space covered by the survey is about 2^ miles (1 ri-) long, north and south, by one mile (14 cho) wide. 2. Lay of the Land. The Makumbets valley near the coal mines has a general course from north to south through the middle of the survey ; with a comparatively flat strip of bottom laud about 200 yards wide, bordered by steep hillsides of very irregular shape. At the south- east corner of the survey is a very flat table land, or river terrace, a thousand yards long north and south by 400 yards wide ; and another nearly as large but with much more broken surface around the coal mines, about the middle of the eastern half of the survey, with another patch of level land 200 yards wide on the opposite (western) side of the brook. All three of these terraces are about 200 feet higher than the brook along side, and the two upper ones are of about the same level. The land rises about 400 yards west of the brook into a ridge about 400 feet above the stream ; and on the east rises to about the same height in a distance of 800 yards. The upper part of the course of the brook within the survey is very steep, and the valley very narrow without bottom land. A very narrow bridle path, scarcely more than a deer path above the mines, runs nearly throughout the limits of the survey, mainly following the principal valley. 3. Geology. The beds of rock within the limits of the survey seem to have a general dip of say 45 degrees (varying from perhaps five degrees to sixty) about south 75 degrees west, but to have the general course of their strike (north 15 degrees west) varied by several subordi- nate gentle waves or rolls whose axes run about north 45 degrees west. The rocks (aside from the alluvium of the bottom land) seem all to belong to what I have called in former reports the Iloniumi Group, the coal bearing group of other parts of Yesso ; and to be probably of late Secondary or early Tertiary age. The following is a section (from above downwards) of rocks exposed at different points and com- bined by means of the survey into one column showing the thickness and the relative position of the different beds. (A rough measurement is marked ; a guess is mark- ed ?; but these uncertainties do not affect the distance of a bed from the top of the column.) Clay 3.0? Coal 0.6 Clay 3.0 ? y Hidden 82.0 Clay 3.5 Coal 0.6 Clay 5.0 Hidden 99.0 Pebble rock 4.0 ? Hidden 95.0 Pebbles 3.0 Clay 0.5 Coal 0.5 Clay O.o Fine sand rock 5.5=t Pebble rock o.0 Hidden 11.0 Olive green shales 3.0=t Coal 0.03 to 0.05 Olive green shales 3.0 Pebble rock 3.0=t Hidden 220.0 Conl 0.2 Bluish clay shales 2.0 Clay 0,5 to 1,0 0.75 6 Coal 0.9 Clay 41.0 ? Yellow saud rock 59.0 ? Shales 8.0 Hidden 44.0 Coal 0.15 Hidden 33.0 Dark green bard close-grained sand rock 3.0 Green soft sand rock 2.0 Green sand rock 10.0 Dark green hard close-grained sand rock 5.0 Dark close-grained sand rock 6.0 ? Hidden 29.0 Shales and sand rock containing traces of coal 7.0 ? Hidden 4.0 Pebble rock 2.0 ? Clay 1.0 Coal 2.8 Clay 3.0? Hidden 3,0 So ft gray sandrock 11.0? Hidden 67.0 Clay mixed with shales 2.0 Hidden 16.0 Shales 5.0 ? Hidden 5.0 Bluish gray fine-grained sand rock weathering brown 5.0? Green shales weathering brown .... 5.0 Bluish gray fine-grained sand rock weathering brown 6.0? Hidden 34.0 Pebbles 2.0? Fine pebble rock 2.0 Light gray saud rock 2.0 7 Pebble rock 2.0 ? Hidden 15.0 Hard fine-grained greenish gray sand rock 6.0 ? Hidden 167.0 Shales 4.0 Hidden. 21.0 Shales 4.0 ? Hidden 81.0 Grayish green shales 13.0? Hidden 3.0 Gray shales 9.0? Hidden 21.0 Greenish gray shales 9.0 ? Hidden 138.0 Greenish gray shaly sandrock... 10.0? Hidden 11.0 Dark gray shales 18.0? Hidden 3.0 Greenish gray shales 7.0 ? Hidden 4.0 Greenish gray shales 13.0? Hidden 11.0 Shales 89.0? Hidden 21.0 Brownish gray shales 4.0? Blackish gray shales 0.3 Soft coal 0.5 Bony coal 0.2 Coal (in one place 2. 7) 2.0 Blackish sandy shales 0.6 Rather soft coal 0.65 Black coaly shales 3.0? Hidden 9.0 Shales 36.0 ? Hidden 43.0 Coal 0.20.3 0.25 Hidden . 3,0 8 Close-grained sandrock 3.0 ? Clay 0.3 Coal 0.5 Sandrock 3.0? Hidden 17.0 Blackish gray shales 5.0? Coal 2.6 Dark brown clay 0.3 Coal 0.2 Dark brown clay 0.75 Coal 0.2 Blackish gray shales 4.0? Hidden 12.0 Clay 46.0? Hidden 40.0 Shales 20.0 Coal 0.4 Shales 7.5 Hidden 33.0 COAL 3.5 Hidden 72.0 COAL, said to be 4.0 Hidden 20.0 Shales 19.0? Hidden 100.0 Sandy pebble rock 9.0 ? Coal 0.2 Hidden 48.0 Sandy pebble rock 20.0 ? 2,252.50 There is great resemblance between ihis section (especially in its lower half) to the upper part of the general section on the Bibai River going to show that the coals of both places are but parts of the same great field. It is said that the Ainos formerly washed gold sand in the upper part of the Shibichari valley ; saiid derived probably from, rocks of another group. 9 4. Coal. There are, then, but two coal beds that are more limn three feet thick and may be called workable. The upper one of these was measured by Mr. Mnnroe in the bed of a small stream and found to be three feet and a half thick. There was an old mine (a drift) on the same bed, but it was inaccessible and a new and perhaps imperfect trial pit near it (by Mr. Inagaki) gave a thick- ness of but one foot and seven-tenths, including four- tenths of a foot of an irregular layer (a " horse ") of hard brown rock. There was also an old drift on the lower bed that could no longer be entered ; and our only knowledge of the thickness there comes from a former miner who says ap- parently with some exactness that it was four feet. There is besides an old drift on the 2. 6 foot coal bed about 170 feet above the 3J foot bed ; and six old drifts on the 2. foot to 2. 7 foot bed that is about 295 feet above the 3^ foot bed, five of the six being in one group very near together. All of the drifts were at the time of the survey inaccessible, so far as to the coal ; and the thickness was measured outside of the mines. It would seem, then, that most of the old mining was done upon the two uppermost beds, that appear to be too thin to work with profit, that is, decidedly less than three feet. It is said however that the workings were abandoned only because of the lack of demand for the coal when it had been carried to Shibichari on the sea shore, a point from which vessels could not well take it. The mining seems to 'have been done about the year 1870 by the go- vernment, and to have lasted about a year. The outcrop of the two lower beds that seems workable run rather crookedly with a general north and south course, varying with the shape of the ground and with the change of strike, along near the eastern border of the survey j and are in general about parallel to each other 10 and from fifty to a hundred and fifty yards apart, the lowermost one to the east of the other. The outcrops indeed, as it turns out, lie in good part just outside the limits of the survey. Our map enables the space covered by different portions of the beds upon it to be measured, and (reckoning the thickness also) gives the number of cubic yards (or tons) of the coal. In that way, we find within the map 66 acres (80,000 tsubo) of the upper workable bed, or (at a thickness of 3J feet) 454,000 tons above the lowest natural drainage level, that is, above the level of the lowest point of the out-crop of the bed (on the map), in this case about 170 feet above the sen, (he lowest point upon the surveyed part of the bed from which a drift could be driven in that would drain itself without the help of pumps. A good portion of the space from that level on the bed upwards to the outcrop happens to lie outside the limits of the survey. The space on the map from the lowest drainage level on the same bed down to a level five hundred feet lower is 247 acres (299,000 tsubo) giving 1,581,000 tons ; making in all from that lower level up to the outcrop 313 acres (379,000 tsubo) or 2,085,000 tons. The lower workable bed in like manner has within the map limits 67 acres (81,000 tsubo), or (at a thickness of four feet), 528,000 tons above the lowest drainage level (about 150 feet above the sea) ; and 216 acres (261,000 tsubo), or 1,637,000 tons between that level and 500 feet lower ; making in all above the lower level 233 acres (342,000 tsubo), or 2,165,000 tons. Both beds, then, within those limits would have 982,000 tons above the lowest natural drainage level ; 3,218,000 tons between that level and one 500 feet lower ; or 4,200,000 tons in all. As one bed lies over the other through the greater part of those spaces, the extent of 11 land that covers the portions of both that are above the drainage level is but 95 acres ; between that and the 500 foot lower level 275 acres (332,000 tsubo; ; and the whole of both portions of both beds 342 acres (414,000 tsubo). Each bed probably has for the next 500 feet of depth quite as much more coal as in the 500 feet just measured ; so that the two beds together would have within the moderate mining depth of a thousand feet below natural drainage somewhere about 7,400,000 tons ; a quantity that should, however, be increased by the portions of considerable size near the out- crop that lie just outside the map and cannot therefore be measured now.* The quality of the coal does not seem to be remarkably good ; but no assay of it has yet been made. 5. Shipments. There is no road from the mines to Shibichari on the sea shore (about 11 miles, or 4J ri) ex- cept a bridle path ; but that is mostly very level, and a waggon road or a tramroad could be built without difficul- ty. It is said that the road from Shibichari to Uragawa (27 miles, or 10J ri) is every where along the seashore and level, so that a waggon road or tramroad could easily be built. At Uragawa is a somewhat sheltered roadstead or harbour, and there is no other so near that is anything like so good. Tn the other direction from Shibichari the * It has been discovered within the last few days that Mr. Munroe and hia interpreter measured a coal exposure very near the old mine upon the lower workable coal bed, an exposure tnat seems now quite possibly to be on the same bed. The thickness was only about a foot and a half of coal, separated into two halves by about a loot and a half of black clay, making about three feet in all; a thickness that would, with allowance for the not unusual popular exaggeration in such matters, correspond perhaps well enough with the " reported thickness of four feet" tor that bed. If the exposure, then, was an undisturbed one and gave the full thickness of the " lower bed," the whole amount of that bed as given above must be reckoned as no part of the workable coal of the tract. Besides the amount of coal given in the text there are probably 810 acres or 5,800,000 tons of the upper bed within the tract between 500 and at most say 3000 feet below water level j making the whole amount of that bed alone about 1,123 acres or 7,400,000 tons. 12 Feb., 1876, B, S, L, 12 road (the usual bridle path) is said to be along the sea shore and level, except here and there a low hill of 20 or 30 feet, as far as Ynbuts (37J miles or 15 ri.) Near Yubuts may some day pass a railroad connecting the Ishcari Valley and its coal mines with the excellent harbor of Mororan ; and the distance from Ynbuts to Mororan is 52 miles (20f ri), and all level except two not very impracticable hills near the port. As there is said to be coal at two or three places on the streams between Shibi-- chari and Yubuts, it is not at all impossible that for the sake of coal alone, apart from other reasons, it may be at some future time found worth while to build a railroad along the coast ; and in that case the whole expense would not come upon the Makumbets field alone. There has also been some talk of improving the Uragawa harbor by a breakwater. 6. Map. The survey was begun (in Sept. 1873) by Mr. H. S. Munroe, Assistant Geologist, who spent about a week there, visited most of the mines and some of the outside exposures of rock and coal, determined the true north by observation of the pole star, arranged the general plan of the survey, and left written instruc- tions in regard to it with Messrs. T. Inagaki, J* Takahashi, T. Saito, J. Shimada and S. Mayeda, As- sistant Geologists. They completed the survey in the manner that we adopted at the outset for all our large surveys in Yesso, running (with prismatic com- pass and pacing) rectangular and parallel lines, and levelling (with hand level) stakes 200 feet apart, and running some streams in addition. They also ran a main line lengthwise of the survey and a cross line on either side with transit and stadia as a check to the other lines. Each assistant plotted the portion of the field that he had surveyed and drew its contour lines ; but the whole was united into one map by Mr.-Iuagaki, aided by Mr. Saito, 13 Mr. Shi mad a drew, under my guidance the six cross sections of rock structure and reduced them to columnar sections of the rock beds, afterwards combining them into one. The mapping of the coal beds was done by myself. The map (including sections and all, 2| feet by 1) is on a scale of -g-oVo* f ^attire, and shows the shape of the ground by contour lines ten feet apart in level. At start- ing, their height above the sea was determined by aneroid readings. The outcrop of each of the two workable coal beds is laid down on the map, as well as the course that a drift would take if driven level into the hill from the lowest point on the outcrop. Of the upper (3J foot) bed Jl similar level lines are drawn for every hundred feet of level from the outcrop down to 500 feet below the lowest natural drainage level. The details of the map and of the survey are much the same as those already described for the maps of the Yamukushinai, the Washiuoki and the Idzumisawa Oil Lauds already in print and need not be repeated here. I have the honor, to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, BENJ. SMITH LYMAN, Chief Geologist and Mining Engineer to the Kaitakushi. Sapporo, 17th July, 1875. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO, REPORT ON THE SANKEBIBAI I) X AND I NAIE COAL SURVEY OF 1875; 1 ACCOMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER TO THE KAITAKUSHI. T O K E-I : PUBLISHED BY THE KAITAKUSHI, 1876. 3 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. REPORT ON THE SANKEBIBAI AND NAIE COAL SURVEY OF* 1875 ; ACCOMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LY- MAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. 1 . SITUATION. 2. LAY OF THE LAND. 3. GEOLOGY. 4. COAL. 5. SHIPMENT. 6. MAP. His EXCELLENCY K. KURODA, KaitalcuchoJcuwan. SIR, I have the honor to make you the following report on the Sankebibai and Naie (or Naiye) coal survey of last year. 1. Situation. The survey covers a space of about 2,300 feet in width, one half of it on either side of a straight line running about six miles N 50 E (magnetic) from the Bibai coal survey of the ye.-ir before last towards the Sorachi river ; and covers therefore 2,6 square miles. The line was run in order, if possible, to trace roughly at least the limits of the great Ishcari coal field. At every thousand feet of the main line side lines of a thousand feet in length were run right and left, and the course of some of the principal streams was also run. 4 The Epanaomap valley was also visited by Mr. Kuwa- da, assistant Geologist at a point about half a mile north west of the northeastern end of the survey ; and materials were obtained there for a topographical and geo- logical sketch map of a thousand feet by five hundred. 2. Lay of the Land. The survey lies near the north- western edge of the highlands east of the Ishcari river ; and is traversed more or less nearly at right angles by the upper waters of the Sankebibai (sometimes called by mistake Ponbibai, or Little (branch of the) Bibai) on the southwest, the Chaushinai in the middle and the Naie towards the northeast, all flowing towards the Ishcari. The Sankebibai valley is, in the survey, from 250 to 300 feet above the sea and the two other valleys about 200 feet higher. The hills south- west of the Chaushinai rise to a height of some 300 feet above the two main valleys ; but towards the Naie rise 600 feet above that stream, and still further northeasterly form a large, high mass of which the highest points are even 1300 or 1400 feet above the sea. Along the Sankebibai there is a little flat land a couple of hundred yards wide ; but the Naie River, though a wider stream, has a very narrow steep-sided valley, with, in one place, a very small flat terrace about 150 feet above the stream. The hillsides almost everywhere else are quite sleep. The land is everywhere covered with forest and with thick bamboo grass (Arundinaria) \ery tall and stout, a great hindrance to surveying. 3. Geology. The rock l.rds of the survey seem to lie in the form of three saddles with basins between and with nxes running about due north (magnetic). One of the basins crosses the Sonkebibni, and has on the westerly side dips of about 25 degrees, and on the easterly side about 60 degrees. It is followed to the east by a sharp saddle with dips of some 45 degrees eastward, forming apparent- ly a wide basin as far as to the Chaushiuai, where the dip seems to be vertical or extremely steep towards the west. Then a broad saddle seems to fill the space as far as to the Naie, and to have along that stream near the bottom of the adjoining basin easterly dips of some 15 degrees followed quickly ou the eastern side of the basin by westerly dips of about 40 . From the Naie to the north-eastern end of the survey no exposures of rock were found. The westerly dips, then are generally steeper than the easterly ones. The basins and saddles all seem to plunge decidedly southward. The direction of the axes is one of the two principal axial directions that can be discerned in the much contorted folds of the rock b eds of Nuppaomanai and that can be traced in the beds of the still nearer Bibai coal field. But in those fields the northeasterly axial di- rection is more striking; and at Poronni is almost the only one to be seen, leaving the shape of the rock folds much more simple. It is quite possible that the northeasterly direction might also be found to exist in the Sankebibai and Naie field if the geology were more clearly made out by the discovery of more numerous rock exposures and dips. The rocks of the present survey belong, it appears, wholly to the lower part of the section of the Bibai coal field and to a still lower depth ; and the following section (downwards) has been made out from a combination of all I he observations in the field by means of the topogra- phical and geological map : Feet. Light brown shales and coaly matter ... ... 1.50 Coal (U 743 n) same as (E 344 d) of the Bibai survey ... ... ... ... ... 0.75 Light brown shales aiid coaly matter, exposed, say 3.00 Unknown 21,00 6 Light brown shales, exposed, say 3.00 Shales and coaly matter (U 743 in) 1.00 Light brown shales, exposed, say ... ... ... 4.00 Unknown 198.00 Coal mixed with shales (K 1246 f) same as (B 889 y), Bibai survey 0.50 Bluish gray rough sand rock ... ... ... 20.00 Unknown ... ... ... ... ... ... 1.50 Gray sand rock, weathered brown (U 863 h) ... 20.00 Unknown 36.00 Gray sandrock, weathered brown... ... ... 4.50 Gray shales (U 864 a), exposed, say ... ... 6.00 Unknown ... ... ... ... ... ... 18.75 Hard brownish shales 30.00 Bad coal (N 779 f) 0.50 Yellowish gray clay, about... ... ... ... 8.00 Unknown ... ... ... ... ... ... 13.00 Hard brownish shales (N 780 h), perhaps ... 7.00 Unknown ... ... ... ... ... ... 58.00 Hard brownish shales 11.50 Brownish shales 3.50 Coal l.QO Gray clay 3.30 Good coal (N 779 b) ; same as (E 421 h) Bibai Survey... ... ... ... ... ... 4.50 Unknown 60.00 Bluish gray sand rock and limestone balls (K 1246 b) exposed, say, 3.00 Gray sand rock weathered brown, say ... ... 7.00 Gray shales (U 865 b), say, 6.00 Blackish gray shales with fossil leaves (K 1246 c) exposed, say ... ... ... ... ... 3.00 Unknown 147.00 Light brownish shales (N 765 a) 7.00 Unknown 38.00 Gray sand rock (U 866 f), perhaps 9.00 Unknown ... ... 5.00 7 Gray sandrock weathered brown ... ... ... 10.00 Gray shales 4.02 Gray saudrock, weathered brownish, with fossil shells (U 866 ca) 1.50 Dark gray shales ... ... ... ... ... 1.00 Gray shales, weathered brown, exposed, say, ... 2.00 Unknown ... ... ... ... ... ... 5.00 Hard gray clay, exposed, say, ... ... .., 3.00 Coal and clay alternate (Q 754 qa) same as (E 423 r) Bibai survey, 1.50 Hard gray clay, exposed, say, ... ... ,. k 2.00 Unknown 12.00 Gray sand rock (U 866 ea), exposed, say, ... 8.00 Unknown 113.00 Gray sandy shales, weathered brown, exposed, say, 4.00 Coal shales (U 867 ia) 2.50' Unknown 15.00 Gray sandrock, weathered brown, (U 867 \) ex- posed, say ... ... ... ... ... 9.00 Coarse grained gray sand rock .. ... ... 12.00 Coal (N 739 da) 0.80 Unknown 93.00 Coarse grained gray sand rock (N 758 aa) ... 7.00 Unknown 19.00 Gray sand rock, weathered brown... ... ... 7.00 Gray sand rock, with fossil shells and small sili- cions pebbles ... ... ... ... ... 1.00 Gray sand rock, weathered brown (U 867 1) ... 5.00 Unknown 430.00 Very fine black weathered sand rock (Q 747 cd), say ... 6.00 Unknown 10.00 Clay shales (Q 747 ce) say 4.00 1553.02 The little sketch map of part of the Epanaomap valley gives in like manner the following rough section (down- wards) ; 8- Feet. Hard gray clay, exposed perhaps... 0.50 Coal (Q 784 n) ; same as (B 926 f ) 2.00 Hard gray clay, weathered brown 2.30 Good coal ... ... ... ... ... ... 0.50 Hard gray clay, exposed, perhaps 0.50 Unknown 74.00 Very fine hard sand rock 5.00 Very fine and very hard sandy clay ... ... 2.20 Coal with amber (Q 783 1) 0.50 Hard dark clay, exposed, perhaps... 0.50 Unknown 21.00 Hard dark gray clay, exposed, perhaps ... ... 3.00 Coal (Q 782 k), like (Q 781 h) ; same as (K 1246 f) and (B 889 y) 1.90 Hard dark clay, exposed perhaps ... ... ... 2.00 Unknown 40.00 Hard very fine sand rock, exposed perhaps ... 1.00 Unknown 133.00 Hard dark gray clay ... ... ... ... 7.00 Coal (Q 781 h) ; same as (U 741 b) (and (E420d)?) 1.90 Hard dark clay 3.00 Unknown 74.00 Hard dark clay, exposed perhaps ... ... ... O.cO Bony coal 1.80 Coal 0.45 Coal slaie 0.60 Ccal 0.15 Bony coal ... 1.00 Coal 0.20 Hard clay 0.35 Coal 0.45 Coal and bony coal (Q 780 g) ; same as (N 779 h) and (E 421 h) 2.20 9 Hard dark clay 0.60 Brown sandy clay, exposed perhaps 1.00 Unknown 132.00 Greenish gray, hard, very fine sandrock, weather- ed brown (Q 779 da), exposed perhaps ... 1.00 Unknown 126.00 Greenish gray, hard, very fine saudrock, (Q 778 aa), exposed perhaps ... ... ... ... 1.00 626.10 The thickness of the rough section seems to be ex- aggerated about twelve per cent ; but otherwise agrees well with the corresponding part of the sections of the main survey and of the Bibai survey. 4. Coal. The only mineral of economical importance within the limits of the survey is the coal, and of that only one bed seems to be workable, the bed marked in the section as (N 779 b) ; a bed that in the neighboring Bibai survey is hardly good enough in quality and thick- ness to be workable. About 175 feet below it is the lower workable coal of the Bibai survey averaging at four places 3.22 feet in thickness ; but it was not found anywhere exposed in the present survey. It may perhaps have thinned out in this direction so as to become worth- less ; while the bed of (N 779 b), the Sankebibai bed, as it may be called, by its improvement takes its place in economical value. It is safest not to count upon more than one good bed out of the two. The outcrop of the Sankebibai coal bed crosses the river of that name twice (in shape of the letter U) near the top of the saddle or anticlinal there, and runs on the one hand northerly nearly to the edge of the survey, and, sweeping round to the west, crosses the river again and continues- southwesterly to the survey limits ; while on the other hand it runs northerly to the edge of the map. 10 On the Chansliinai it probably crosses the survey in a southeasterly direction, chiefly to the east of the river ; but soon reenters the field again from the south and with a general northerly course crosses the dividing ridge and bending northeasterly reaches the Naie, and then with a long bend northerly passes round the rock basin there and with a southerly course runs to the border of the map. There is however no exposure of the coal yet known to the east of the Sankebibai valley ; so that the merits of the bed throughout a great part of the survey are yet unknown ; and the position of the outcrop towards the Naie, owing to the comparative rareness of any rock ex- posures observed there, cannot be laid down with very great certainty. The bed is exposed not only at (N 779 b) and (Q 780 g) but also partially at (Q 757 xb) showing 3.60 feet of coal (at the top, without roof), bone coal and soft clay ; making, in all, three exposures with an average of perhaps 5.75 feet of coal, including some bony coal. As some of the bony coal may have to be altogether rejected it will perhaps not be safe to count upon an average thickness of more than four feet of good coal. No assay of the coal has yet been made, The map enables the space filled by the coal bed to be measured, and thereby, taking the steepness of the dip into account, and reckoning a cubic yard to the ton, gives the weight. The extent of the bed above its lowest na- tural drainnge level (about 240 feet above the sea) within the limits of the map appears then to be 170 acres, giving at a thickness of four feet 1,700,000 tons. Between that drainage level and a level five hundred feet lower there would in like manner be within the survey 220 acres or 3,500,000 tons. But going down to the bottom of the basins, at most only about 2,000 feet below drainage level, there would probably be 310 acres more, or 2,500,000 11 tons ; making the whole amount of workable coal 700 / acres or 6,000,000 tons. 5, Shipment. There are at present no roads nor navigable streams leading from the coal field towards any market ; but the Sankebibai, Chanshinai and Naie valleys enable roads to be made without serious difficulty with a continuous and gentle down grade towards the Ishcari river about five miles (2 ri) distant. The lower half of that distance is probably a flat plain, and along the banks of the Chanshinai and Naie rivers would pro- bably be firm ground ; and the road down the Sankebibai, owing to the fact that the river ends in a swamp, would have to take the course of the lower part of the Chaushinai river, which would, however, not materially increase the distance to the Ishcari. The Ishcari from the mouths of the Naie and Chaushinai has probably a depth great enough for steamers or barges of at least five feet draught even iu a very moderate height of water ; and probably at least a couple of feet more through the greater part of the year. Some day, moreover, there will probably be a railroad through the Ishcari valley as far as to the thick beds of very fine coal on the Sorachi river, about ten miles (four ri) beyond the Naie, and such a road would perhaps pass near the foot of the hills about a league only from the present survey. 6. Map. The surveying and the geological observa- tions were done in the summer of 1875 by five of the assistant geologists Messrs. T. Kuwada (in charge of the party), S. Misawa, T. Kada, S. Mayeda and S. Nishi- yama under such instructions as I could give without personally visiting the field. The main line was run with a transit and chain ; the side lines with prismatic compass and pacing ; and the stations (commonly 200 feet apart) were levelled with hand levels. The topographical mapping of each line was done by its surveyor, and the whole united into one map by Mr. Kada. The geological mapping and sections were done by myself with the aid of Messrs. Kuwada and Kada. The lettering has been written by Mr. Kuwada with the aid of Mr. J. Adaclii. The whole work of the final map has been done under my own eye. The map shows the shnpe of (he ground by contour lines ten feet apart in level down to 500 feet below water level, with a double line for the lowest Avater level. The place of probable outcrop is also very clearly marked by short cross hatched lines. The staked stations are marked as in our other maps with separate numbers or letters, so that any given point of the mnp may easily be found on the ground. The dips and strikes of the rocks are marked by a new method that I devised early in the winter, in order to give the direction of the strike and dip and the amount of the dip more compactly, especially for convenience in maps of a small scale and with numerous adjacent dips, like our sketch geological map of Yesso now in the engraver's hands. Instead of the usual arrow for the dip, an arrow of one barb is used, of which the shaft shows the direction of the strike while the barb (one half the length of the shaft) shows on which side the dip is (at right angles of course to the strike) ; and the angle of the barb with the shaft shows the amount of the dip. A break in eitlver shaft or barb shows that the measurement of direction or amount is only a rough one ; two breaks shows that it is a guess. A slightly, doubly curved shaft or barb shows the general direc- tion or amount in case of their varying ; a nearly completely circular curve in the lines shows a rock exposure with confusion or uncertainty of dip and strike. A saddle or anticlinal is shown by a doubly barbed arrow (somewhat like a letter tee), each barb 13 showing the dip on its own side of the saddle ; a basin or synclinal by a mark like a letter wye (that is with the two barbs of the arrow drawn in the opposite direction to what is usual). A horizontal rock is marked by the shaft of the arrow crossed by a very short line or small arrow head (as it were the free end of the barb) between the middle of the shaft and its point. The rock exposure is always at the point of the barbed arrow. The method seenis in compactness and simplicity to have several ad- vantages for general use over that hitherto most common- ly used for marking dips. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient Servant, BENJ. SMITH LYMAN, Chief Geologist and Mining Engineer. Shibaj 12 April, 1876. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. A REPORT ON THE BIBAI COAL SURVEY OF 1874; ACCOMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF A ROUGH SURVEY ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. T O K E I : PUBLISHED BY THE KAITAKUSHI, 1876, Ill GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. A REPORT ON THE BIBAI COAL SURVEY OF 1864 ; AC- COMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF A ROUGH SURVEY ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. 1. SITUATION. 2. LAY OF THE LAND. 3. GEOLOGY. 4. COAL. 5. SHIPMENT. 6. MAP. His EXCELLENCY, K. KURODA, Kaitakuchokmvan. SIR: I have the honor to make the following report on the Bibai Coal Survey of year before last. 1. Situation. The survey lies in the upper part of the Bibai valley and reaches from the Nuppaomanai survey to the Saukebibai and Naie survey, covering a space of riregular shape about four miles and a half (1 ri 29 cho) long from north to south and about two miles and a half (one ri) wide from east to west, just north of the middle; and the whole extent of the tract amounts to 3,055 acres (3,770,000 tsubo), or 4.8 square miles. 2. Lay of the Land. The Bibai River crosses the survey at its widest part in a general westerly direction, 112 and the southern part of the tract is filled up by the val- leys of the 6takisawa on the west and of its branch Na- gatakisawa on the east, small streams that flow in general nearly parallel northwards towards the Bibai. Near the north edge of the tract a still smaller stream flows east- ward to join the Bibai outside the survey. The valley of the Bibai is comparatively flat in the lower third of its course through the tract, forming a triangular space of gentle slopes some three quarters of a mile wide and about 250 feet above the sea. But all the rest of the southern part of the survey is filled by high hills which leave no level ground near the streams and grow gradually higher from something like 1,000 feet above the sea near the Bibai to about 2,000 feet at the dividing ridge between the valley of that river and the waters of the Nuppaomauai at the very southern end of the survey. On the north of the Bibai the land rises gen- erally with more gentle slopes to a height of about 400 feet above the sea at the dividing ridge which separates us from the Sankebibai valley. The land is everywhere covered with forest and with thick bamboo grass (arun- dinaria}. 3. Geology. The rocks of the Qtakisawa and Naga- takisawa valleys (if you consider the shape of any single bed) lie in the form of a large saddle (or anticlinal) or of an egg-shaped boss with the broader end towards the north-east, where it is touched by a similar saddle (or anticlinal) which prolongs the fold north-eastward. On the north is a pretty deep basin in the beds, rising north- erly in a saddle form again on the edge of the Sankebibai survey. The axes of the saddles and basins may be seen to be mainly in a north-easterly and south-westerly direc- tion but small depressions or accessory basins may be de- tected upon the sides of the larger ones and with axes running in a northerly and southerly direction. The same 113 two axial directions can be seen also in the Nuppaomanai and in the Poronai survey still further southwest. At Poionai the northerly and southerly axial direction is almost completely overshadowed by the other one ; but in the Sankebibai and Naie survey becomes so much more prominent as to be the only one yet discovered. The rocks of the Bibai survey belong to the Horurnui group (probably early tertiary or late secondary) ; and appear to lie wholly below those of Poronai and to cor- respond in the upper part to the lower rocks of the Nuppaomanai section and in the lower part to those of the Sankebibai and Naie survey. The following is a section from above downwards of the rocks of the Bibai valley as made out by combining all the field observations through the geological and topographical map : Feet. Bluish gray shale, exposed perhaps 8.00 Coal slate (B 952 h) 3.00 Hidden 13.00 Bluish gray shale, exposed perhaps 6.00 Bituminous clay 1.00 Good coal 0.20 Coal slate 2.00 Good coal 0.10 2.30 Coal slate 0.80 Bluish gray shale, perhaps 18.00 Coal slate, perhaps 3.00 Hard greenish gray sand rock 5.50 Bluish gray shale 13.00 Bituminous clay < 1.00 Good coal (B 952 i) O.?0 Coal slate 0.80 Bluish gray shale, perhaps..* *.... 6.00 Sand rock, exposed perhaps 10.00 Hidden , 11,00 -114- Feet. Bluish gray shale, exposed perhaps 6.00 Bad coal (Y 721 c) 2.00 Bluish gray shaly sand rock, expose'! perhaps 6.00 Hidden 227.00 Good coal 0.25 Sand rock 0.15 Bad coal (B 869 bb) 0.35 O.To Coal slate 0.35 Hidden 28.00 Hard brown sand rock 2.00 Rather hard brown sandy clay 2.00 Reddish brown bad coal 0.30 Soft gray clay 0.10 Coal..... : 0.10 Soft gray clay 0.30 Coal 0.10 Reddish brown soft clay 0.20 Hard gray clay 1.10 Soft whitish brown clay 0.30 Hard dark gray clay 0.50 Coal 0.10 Soft dark gray clay 0.30 Coal 0.60 Soft dark gray clay 0.20 Bad coal 0.45 Soft light gray clay 0.10 Coal 0.15 Soft light gray clay 0.05 Bad coal (Q 532 a) 0.80 5.75 Hard reddish brown clay, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 15.00 Reddish gray coarse grit (Y 629 jb), exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden,, 34.00 -115- Feet. Gray shale (B 952 f), exposed perhaps 14.00 Hidden 155.00 Bluish gray hard sand rock, containing fossils, ex- posed perhaps 5.00 Coal and coal slate, (Y 721 b) 8.00 Bluish gray hard sand rock, containing fossils, ex- posed perhaps 7.00 Hidden 42.00 Brownish gray shale, exposed about 20.00 Coal, an irregular streak Fine grained gray sand rock, from to 5 feet, say... 3.00 Reddish gray soft sand rock, about 0.30 Greenish gray shale, about 7.00 Fine grained gray sand rock, about 1.00 Sand rock with fossil shells, about 2.00 Hard brown shale 6,00 Sand rock with fossil shells, about 13.00 Reddish brown shale, about 12.00 Coal with layers of grayish brown clay 6.00 Clay 10,00 Coal (B 884 o), about 3.00 Brownish gray clay , 1.00 Good coal...** 0.70 4.70 Hard brownish gray shale, about 10.00 Bluish gray shale, about ; 2.00 Bluish gray soft sand rock about 5.00 Hidden 48.00 Bluish gray soft clayey sand rock, about 1.70 Bluish gray sand rock, (B 884 f), about 1.70 Hidden 14.00 Bluish gray sand rock, exposed perhaps 2.00 Coal (B884 g), about 0.40 Hidden 22.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps ,,., 1,50 116 Feet. Bad coal (U 533 j) 2.50 Hard clay, exposed perhaps 1.50 Hidden 5 .00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 2.00 Good coal (U 533 k) 1.20 Greenish gray shale, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 10.00 Greenish gray shale, exposed perhaps. 2.00 Coal (U 533 1) 0.10 Greenish shale, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 33.00 Coal slate, about *... 0.50 Coal (B 884 i), about 0.30 Coal slate, about 0.50 Hidden 17.50 Bad coal, (U 533 h) 2.50 Gray clay 0.50 Coal 0.20 3.20 Brown clay 0.30 Greenish gray shales 1.50 Hidden 62.00 Bluish gray clay shales with fossils, exposed perhaps. 3 .00 COAL, pretty good 3.16 Coal slate 1.16 COAL, pretty good (B 884 k), UPPER BED. ..3.16 7.48 Dark gray clayey sand rock, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 15.00 Greenish gray shales, exposed perhaps 1.00 Bad coal (U 532 f) 0.70 Greenish gray shales, exposed perhaps 1.00 Hidden 32.00 Greenish gray shales, exposed perhaps 1.50 Good coal (U 532 d) 0.80 Greenish gray shales, exposed perhaps .,, 1,50 117 Feet. Hidden 15.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 1-50 Good coal 0.50 Coal slate 0.80 Bad coal (U 532 c) 1.10 2.40 Coal slate, exposed perhaps 1.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 1-00 Good coal (U 532 b) 0.75 Clay shales, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 20.00 Sand rock, exposed perhaps 2.00 Light brownish gray shales, about 500 Coal, bad and soft, (B 884 ma) 7.70 Light brownish gray soft clay 1.70 Greenish gray hard sand rock containing much coaly matter 2.50 Light gray hard shales, gradually becoming sandy, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 66.00 Greenish gray sand rock, exposed perhaps 7.00 Greeni&h gray sand rock with fossil shells (B 885 o), about 4.00 Greenish gray sand rock, exposed perhaps 9.00 Hidden 20.00 Hard greenish gray sand rock 2.00 Soft greenish gray sand rock 5.00 Gray pebbles with dark gray and blackish qnartzite pebbles (B 931 j) 4.00 Greenish gray sandy shales 12.00 Fine greenish gray sand rock, perhaps 10.00 Hidden 30.00 Greenish gray shales, about 3.00 Limestone (B 885 p)..,,, 1.00 Greenish gray sand rock, perhaps ,,,,.,,,,, 10,00 118 Feet. Many thin layers of shales of different colors 2.00 Greenish gray shales, perhaps 5.00 Hidden 40.00 Gray shales, exposed perhaps 6.00 Rotten bony coal 1.00 Soft bluish clay 0.15 Firm good coal, (U 564 k) 2.30 3.45 Gray shales, exposed perhaps 5.00 Hidden 9.00 Gray pebble rock with dark gray and blackish qnartzile pebbles 2.00 Greenish gray shale 6.00 Coal slate (B 8S5 r) 0.40 Greenish gray sand rock, about 6.60 Hidden 500 Greenish gray sand rock, perhaps 10.00 Hidden ". 70.00 Soft clay, exposed perhnps 2.00 Bony coal, (U 566 d) 1.10 Gray shale, exposed perhnps 4.00 Hidden 2.00 Firm good coal, (U 564 h) 1.10 Gray shale, exposed perhaps 10.00 Hidden 185.00 Sandy gray shales, exposed perhaps , 5.00 Soft coal, (U 563 ea) 0.30 Sandy gray shales, exposed perhnps 5.00 Hidden 10600 Greenish gray sand rock 5.00 Gray pebble rock with dark gray and blackish quartzite pebbles, (B 887 ea) 3.00 Greenish gray sand rock 4.00 Hidden ^ 15.00 Greenish gray saiid rock (B 930 e). 20.00 -119- Feet. Hidden 65.00 Greenish gray sand rock (B 888 ha), perhaps 10.00 Hidden 14.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 2.00 Coal, good but soft, (U 572 cb) 0.80 Grayish brown clay shale, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 85.00 Coal with many layers of reddish or brownish clay and shale (Y 669 nb), about 1.70 Hidden 10.00 Lime rock (B 888 j) 0.50 Greenish gray sand rock 1.00 Lime rock 0.50 Hidden 38.00 Grayish white sand rock (B 888 la) 1.50 Hidden 5.00 Greenish gray shale (B 888 Ib), perhaps 3.00 Hidden, perhaps 7.00 Greenish gray shale (B 888 m), exposed per- haps 20.00 Greenish gray shale, exposed perhaps 5.00 25.00 Bad coal much mixed with earth (B 888 n) 0.10 Greenish gray shale * 1.00 Hidden , 25.00 Lime rock 1.00 Greenish gray sand rock with fossil leaves 2.00 Coal slate 0.70 Hard greenish gray sandy shale 4.00 Hard greenish gray sand rock 2.00 Light gray coarse grit 7.00 Gray clay 0.20 Light gray coarse grit 3.00 Gray clay 0.10 Gray pebble rock, with dark gray and blackish quartzite pebbles ,,,..,.,, ,,,,,,,, 400 120 Feet. Greenish gray soft sand rock 0.50 Gray pebble rock, with dark gray and blackish qnartzite pebbles * 1.50 Greenish gray shale 3.00 Bad coal much mixed with earth, (E 444 ba) 1.00 Hidden 7.00 Greenish gray sand rock (E 444 d), perhaps 5.00 Hidden 50.00 Limestone balls 1.00 Greenish gray shales 4.00 Limestone balls 1.00 Greenish gray shale 2.00 Limestone 1.00 Greenish gray shale 4,50 Bad coal much mixed with earth (E 445 h)....0,20 Greenish gray shale 2,00 Bad coal much mixed with earth 0,20 2,40 Greenish gray shale 5,00 Limestone balls 1.50 Limestone 0.50 Hidden 25.00 Bad coal, (E 445 j) 0,90 Greenish gray sandy shale, perhaps 15,00 Hidden 16,(KJ Hard greenish gray sand rock 1,00 Soft greenish gray sand rock 0.30 Gray pebble rock with dark gray and blackish quartzite pebbles (B 929 ta) 2,00 Greenish gray coarse sand rock 4,00 Hidden 10.00 Bad coal (B 926 f) 3.00 Greenish gray sand rock 3.00 Coal slate 1,00 Greenish gray sand rock ,,. 2,00 Feel Limestone 1,50 Hidden 5.00 Hard coarse greenish gray sand rock, very hard at bottom, (B 926 r) and (B 889 oa), in all perhaps 20.00 Hidden 3.00 Greenish gray shale (B 929 q), perhaps 15.00 Hidden 26.00 Soft fine gray clay 0.30 Brownish coal, (B 889 y) 0.60 Coal slate 0.50 Coal 0.40 1.50 Hidden 100.00 Coal (E 420 ba) 0.15 Coal slate O.lo Greenish gray shale 1.00 Hidden 100.00 Greenish gray sand rock 0.50 Greenish gray shale 1.50 Bad coal much mixed with earth (E 420 d)...0.10 Limestone balls 0.60 Bad coal much mixed with earth 0.10 0.80 Greenish gray shale 1.00 Hidden 40.00 Greenish gray shale 0.50 Bad coal much mixed with earth, (E 421 s) 0.10 Greenish gray shale 0.50 Hidden 4.00 Soft brown shale 1.00 Bad coal much mixed with earth 2.50 Good coal (E 425 h) 1.50 4.00 Greenish gray sandy sh;ile 2.00 Hidden 14.00 Bad coal 1.80 Good coal(E 421 i) 1.00 2.80 122 Feet. Greenish gray sand rock 1.00 Hidden 27.00 Greenish gray shale, perhaps 15,00 Limestone (B 926 p) 1.50 Greenish gray sand rock 3.00 Hidden 3.00 Greenish gray sand rock, perhaps 10.00 Coal slate (B 926 q), about 15.00 Greenish gray sand rock, perhaps 20.00 Hidden 40.00 Green san d rock, exposed perhaps 2.00 Greenish gray shale 1.20 Fine grained sand rock, (B 927 z) 2.00 Greenish sand rock, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 10.00 Coal slate, exposed perhaps 2.00 Bony coal 2.50 Good COAL, (U 607 pc), LOWER BED 1 . 50 4.00 Gray shale, exposed perhaps 1.00 Hidden 3.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 1.00 Bony coal < 1.20 Good coal 1.00 Bony coal 0.60 Good coal, (U 607 pb) 1.20 Bony coal 1.50 5.50 Coal slate 5.00 Bad con I 1.50 Hidden 28.00 Light brown shaly sand rock 1.00 Bony coal, (U 607 pa) 1.80 Hidden 45.00 Sand rock with fossil shells (U 607 o), exposed perhaps 12.00 123 Feet. Hidden 32,00 Coal slate (E 423 r) 4.50 Greenish gray shale 2.00 Hidden 10.00 Coal slate (E 423 sa) 2.00 Hidden 11.00 Greenish gray shale 1.00 Coal slate 4.00 Greenish gray shale 6.00 Bad coal, (E 423 v) 0.20 Greenish gray shale 1.00 Hidden 20.00 Greenish gray shale 2.00 Greenish gray sand rock (E 423 wa) 2.00 Hidden 1500 Greenish gray sand rock, (E 423 x) 7.00 Hidden 35.00 Greenish gray hard sand rock (E 424 z), perhaps.... 5.00 Hidden 40.00 Greenish gray hard sand rock, (E 424 b), perhaps... 5.00 Hidden 8.00 Coal slate (E 424 c), perhaps 1.20 Hidden 5.00 Greenish gray shale 1.50 Coal slate, (E 424 d) 0.80 Greenish gray shale 5.00 Hidden 30.00 Sand rock with fossil shells (U 607 la), exposed perhaps 12.00 Hidden 45.00 Greenish gray coarse sand rock (E 424 g), perhaps.. 10.00 Hidden 100.00 Greenish gray sand rock (E 425 k) 7.00 Hidden . . 50.00 124 Feet. Greenish gray shale (E 425 1), perhaps o.OO Hidden 12.00 Greenish gray sand rock (E 425 m), perhaps 5.00 3461.03 4. Coal. Aside from the small amount of limestone shown in the section, coal is the'only mineral of economical importance within the survey. Some of the coal heds although thick seemed to the assistants who made the survey to be of poor quality (at least at some of the ex- posures) ; and so have not been counted on as. workable at present. Two beds, however, seem satisfactory boih in thickness and quality ; namely, the bed of (B 884 k) and (Y 663 ba) which averages at those two places 6.30 feet ; and the bed of (U 607 pc), (U 622 va), (U 623 b) and (B 927 w), averaging 3.22 feet at the four places. The former (upper) bed, to be quite safe from exaggeration, has been reckoned at only five feet in thickness and the lower bed at only three feet. The outcrop of the lower workable coal bed runs around the very top of the main saddle or anticlinal already described ; and is chiefly high up on the hills on either side of Otakisawa in the middle part of its course. The outcrop forms a similar but much smaller oval shape on the corresponding part of the Nagatakisawa hill sides ; and reappears in somewhat similar shape but on a larger scale on either side of the Bibai. It probably recurs again in crossing the northeasterumost edge of the survey towards the Sankebibai. The outcrop of the upper bed is far outside that of the lower bed though rudely parallel to it ; and crosses the survey near its southern end in a north-easterly direction. Then on the north of the main saddle it crosses north- easterly the Bibai river in the lower part of its course 125 within the survey ; and has another nearly parallel out- crop half a mile further north on the southern side of the opposite saddle. The space that is filled by the bed has been measured by means of the map ; and taking account of the steepness of the dip and reckoning a cubic yard to the ton the weight of the coal has been calculated. The upper bed is found to underlie eighty-five acres at a higher level than the lowest natural drainage of the bed within the tract (about 1,275 feet above the sea in the southern part of the tract and 235 feet above the sea on the Bibai), and to contain therein 700,000 tons. Also within 500 feet below that drainage level there are found to be 295 acres or 2,500,000 tons; making 380 acres or 3,200,000 tons above the 500 foot level. Below that level there are besides within the limits of the map probably 230 acres or 2,000,000 tons more, at a depth of not more than 1,300 feet below water level ; making 610 acres or 5,200,000 tons in all. Of the lower bed in like manner 465 acres within the survey, or 2,360,000 tons are found to be above water level (about 300 feet above the sea); and within 500 feet below water level there are 675 acres or 3,500,000 tons; making in both portions together 1,140 acres or 5,860,000 tons. Besides that there are probably below the 500 foot level 1,600 acres or 8,000,000 tons of the bed within the tract and at most some 3,000 feet below the lowest natural drainage level; making in all 1,740 acres or 13,860,000 tons of the bed. Taking both beds together, then, there would be within the survey 3,060,000 tons above water level, all lying / within 550 acres; and 6,000,000 tons within 500 feet below water level and contained within 970 acres; or in both portions together 1,520 acres or 9,060,000 tons. Adding also the portions below the 500 foot level (or 126 10,000,000 tons, we find the whole amount of good workable coal within the tract to be 19,060,000 tons contained within 2,740 acres. Some portions of the lower bed underlie a part of the upper bed so as to lessen the number of acres in uniting the two. There are besides several beds of two feet or more, one even 7.7 feet in thickness, that may be considered as likely to be workable before the large amount already given shall be wholly worked out. The assistants who made the survey, however, considered the thicker of those unreckoned beds to be of inferior quality, and it would perhaps be safest not to take them as quite work- able at present ; and only to count on the nineteen millions of tons already mentioned. 5. Shipments. There are at present no roads what- ever nor navigable streams within the survey, and the construction of roads would be probably a little difficult, though not impossible, in the narrow, crooked, steep valleys of the Otakisawa and Nagatakisawa ; but would be easy enough in the main valley of the Bibai except perhaps in the upper part. The distance by such a road from the coal to the plain of the Ishcari valley would be, say, a mile (14 cho) and thence straight across to the Ishcari river would be about six miles (2^ ri), and the river would be reached a mile above the mouth of Tomushi. Probably the depth of water up to that point would be about seven feet in ordinary low water. But the great, swamp of the Ishcaii plain may be too difficult to go straight across with a road. To take a road down the crooked Bibai river would be possible as there is firm ground along its banks ; but the distance to the month of the Bibai would be about fifteen miles. The depth of the Ishcari up to that point is called ten feet in ordinary low water. If however a railroad should be built from the Ishcari river (either at Ilorumuiboto 127 or at Bibaielap) to the Poronai coal field, tbe distance to that road from the outlet of the Bibai survey on the eastern edgo of the great plain around the foot of the hills Nvonld be only about eight miles (34 ri), and undoubtedly such a branch road would be very easy to build. It would in fact be, throughout, a part of a line towards the thick beds of fine coal on the Sorachi River ; a line that will almost necessarily be built some day. A canal might perhaps be dug straight across the Ishcari plain from above the Tomushi to the survey ; but the rise of nearly a hundred feet would require a large number of costly locks. The canal boats or barges could be towed by steamers down the Ishcari River to its mouth ; but the repeated breaking of bulk in loading from the mine railroad into the canal boats and from them again into larger vessels at Ishcari would be a source of some expense and of injury to the coal. It is barely possible that the Bibai river might be converted into a canal ; but in addition to the number of locks that would be required for a still greater fall than that of the canal just suggested, there would be a much greater length of navi- gation, more even than the fifteen miles above mentioned, because in them the extremely numerous smaller windings of the river are left out of account. 6. Map. The map of the rough survey (dated 19th April, 1876) is on a scale of -sm and has a number of unexaggerated cross sections on the same scale showing the structure of the rock beds and their dip in several parts of the survey ; likewise a section on a scale ofTinnr showing the beds so far as yet known through a thickness of 3461 feet, made out by a combination of all the cross sections and of the strike lines of the map ; likewise two small maps to show the general position of the survey ; and the whole covers a space of 4.75 feet by 2.60 feet. The shape of the surface of the ground is shown 128 on the main map by contour lines ten feet apart in level; and the position and shape of the two workable coal beds are shown in like manner from the outcrop down to a depth of 500 feet below water level by means of (broken) contour lines one hundred feet apart in level and the outcrops are marked besides. The details of the map are in short the same as those of the Sankebi- bai and Maknmbets surveys and of others already publish- ed; but the present map is much larger. As the mode of drawing the two sets of contour lines and their shape are so different the fact that both sets are on the same map gives rise to no confusion; and the place and form of the coal beds and the direction of the axes are made very clear. ^f The surveying was done in 1874 by Messrs. T. Yama- uclii, T. Kuwada, T. Kada, I. Ban, E. Yamagiwa and S. Nishiyama. A main line (not straight throughout) was run with transit and chain, and side lines, at right angles or thereabouts, with prismatic compasses and pacing. The two directions at right angles with each other were about those of the .north-easterly direction of the axes and the dips across it. Stakes 200 feet apart (as in the other surveys) were levelled with hand levels. The surveyor of each line is pointed out on the map. He also plotted his own line, and the whole was united into one map by Messrs. Yamauchi and Kada. The geo- logical observations were made chiefly by Mr. Yamauchi. The geological mapping and sections were done by myself with the aid of Messrs. Kada and Ban; and Mr. Kada also lettered and finished the whole map under my own eye. I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient Servant, BENJ. SMITH LYMAN, Chief Geologist and Mining Engineer. Miyohqji, Echigo ; August 31st, 1876. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. REPORT ON THE NUPPAOMANAI SURVEY OF 1874; ACCOMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TO POGRAPHICAL MAP OF THE SURVEY AND A TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF A LINE FROM KAWANAI TO THE ISHCARI RIVER 5 BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. TOKEI: PUBLISHED BY THE KAITAKUSHI, 1876. 131 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. REPORT ON THE NUPPAOMANAI SURVEY OF 1874; ACCOM- PANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF THE SURVEY AND A TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF A LINE FROM KAWANAI TO THE ISHCARI RIVER ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. 1. SITUATION. 2. LAY OF THE LAND. 3. GEOLOGY. 4. COAL. 5. SHIPMENTS. 6. MAPS. His EXCELLENCY K. KURODA, Kaitakuchokuwan t SIR: I have the honor to make you the following report oil the Nuppaomanai Coal Survey of year before last. 1. Situation. The survey covers an irregular space from south-west to north-east through the diagonal of a square that is nearly three miles and a half (a ri and a third) on a side, hut broad towards the south-west and tapering off narrowly to the north-east ; and containing in. all 2,410 acres (2,916,000 tsubo) or 3.8 square miles. The southernmost edge rests upon the Ikushibets River (a branch of the Horumui) at the mouth of the Nuppaomanai 132 Brook. The survey on the north-east touches the south- em edge of the Bibai survey; on the south touches the Rail Road Survey of last year; and on the north-west ad- joins the survey of the line run year before last to the Ishcari River. 2. Lay of the Land. The Nuppaomanai Brook tra- verses the whole eastern edge of the survey from the very north-eastern corner, where a high ridge divides it from the Bibai valley. Several small branches join the brook from the north and have their valleys almost wholly with- in the survey. The remaining western part of the survey is filled by the head waters of the Kawanai brook which flows south-westward, and is said by the Ainos to end in the great swamp of the Ishcari valley without reaching either to the Ikushibets or to the Chipturaship, a brauch of the Bibai. For about a thousand yards northward from the south- ern edge of the survey the land is very flat, and about 150 feet above the sea ; then it rises fifty feet to a terrace, the brow of which is however towards the west cut down into a gentle slope ; then at nearly a mile from the south- ern edge of the survey steep hills begin which fill up the whole remaining space, except narrow bottoms, scarcely 200 feet wide, along the lower part of the jSuippaoimiuai and Kawanai Brooks. Towards Kawanai the hills are only 550 to 650 feet high above the sea but north-eastward are higher and higher until at the upper corner- of the survey they are 1,800 feet high. The land is everywhere covered with forest and wholly uninhabited by men. 3. Geology. The rock beds are very much contorted, and at first it was difficult to make out any probable ex- planation of the extremely various dips. For half a mile or more from the north-east corner of the survey, however, the comparatively regular and simple structure of the southern part of the Bibai survey with a north-east and 133 south-west saddle axis and comparatively gentle dip seems to continue, bringing higher and higher rocks to the sur- face, so that in fact the workable coals of the Bibai and Sankebibai surveys do not reappear at all in the Nup- paonianai survey. Then begins a region of steep dips in many different directions, that fill up most of the remain- der of the survey except perhaps the southern flat ground, where the rocks are wholly concealed, and where perhaps rocks of the To^hibets Group (later than the other rocks of the survey, the coal bearing group) lie below, since they seem to be exposed at Porouaibuto close by. The con- fused appearance of the dips just spoken of is caused by a crushing together of the beds that has produced on the north-east a narrow steep basin, then a narrow sharp saddle, then another narrow basin and another rather broader saddle with their axes all running north and south, crossing the principal axial direction of north-east and south-west which is seen in the Bibai survey on one side and in the Poronai survey on the south. Even in the north-western edge of the Nuppaomauai survey near the beginning of the Ishcari Line is found a steep sided rock saddle with its axis running north-east and south-west and between that and the four north and south axes just men- tioned is still another very small but very steep saddle with two little branches north-eastward which appears to have its axis running mainly north-easterly and south- westerly. Most of the observed dips therefore are ex- tremely steep, except in the north-eastern corner of the survey, but even there are often more than thirty degrees and seldom less than twenty degrees. The rocks of the survey, then, belong, so far as known, to the Horumui (or Brown coal) Group, and are almost wholly above those of the Bibai survey, and in the upper part correspond to those of the Porouai survey. The fol- lowing section (from above downwards) has beeu made 134 out by a combination of all the field observations through means of the geological and topographical map ; and the closeness of its agreement above and below with the Po- ronai and Bibai sections, which were worked out for the most part quite independently, very strongly confirms the explanation of the structure just given : Feet. Greenish white micaceous sand rock 3.00 Weathered brown sand rock 6.00 Flinty shale containing clay and lime, (K 942 1)... 7.00 Hidden 7.00 Bluish gray sand rock, weathering brown (U 358 i), exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 36.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 3.00 Soft coal, (U 360 q) 0.40 Soft clay 0.20 Soft coal 0.20 0.80 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 125.00 Bad coal, (E 323 t), probably the Poronai No. VII coal imperfectly exposed 1.00 Brownish gray sandy clay, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 15.00 Grayish white shale, fK 947 q), exposed perhaps... 2.00 Hidden 8.00 Yellowish white sand rock, (K 948 z), exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 25.00 Grayish white shale, (K 947 s), exposed perhaps... 2.00 Hidden 20.00 Yellowish white fine sand rock, (K 948 v), exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 38.00 Gray clay shale, (K 948 u), exposed perhaps 3.00 135 Feel. Hidden 50.00 Thin traces of coal, (U 330 k), probably the out- crop of the Poronai No. VI coal Bluish gray sand rock, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 75.00 Brownish gray shale, exposed perhaps 2.00 Bad coal, (E 322 m) 1.00 Greyish brown cln.y 1.00 Reddish brown clay, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 35.00 Greenish brown clay 0.40 Hard and good coal (U 330 i) 0.56 Greenish brown clay 0.40 Greenish hard clay contain coaly fossils 4.40 Bluish gray hard clay 5.00 Blue grit, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 3.00 Yellowish gray sandy shale, (K 950 f), exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 27.00 Grayish sand rock, (K 950 g), exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 110,00 Hard brown clay, exposed perhaps 2,00 Bad coal, (E 327 ea) 0.30 Hard brown clay, exposed perhaps 2.00 Hidden 62.00 Rotten coal slate, (E 327 ca), perhaps 0.50 Hidden 5.00 Hard gray clay, (E 327 a), perhaps 4.50 COAL (locally much crushed and poor) 1.00 Clay .. 0.30 COAL (locally much crushed and poor), (Y 552 c) UPPER BED 4.20 Light gray clay 1.50 136 Feet. Coal 2.00 9.00 Gray shale, (U 377 n) exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 30.00 Blackish clay 1.00 COAL pretty good (but locally rotten), (U 329 d), MIDDLE BED 3.50 Blackish clay 0.30 Poor dirty coal or bituminous shale, rotten 3.70 Dark gray clay 0.50 Black coaly matter much mixed with layers of clay, (U 329 e) 31.00 Whitish clay, (Y 576 b) 10.00 Hidden 20.00 Hard gray clay, exposed perhaps 1.50 Coal in pieces, mixed with coal slate, (Q 441 h)... .300 Hard gray clay, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 13.00 Greenish sand rock 15.00 Coal mixed with layers of clay, (B 801 f )...4.00 Bad coal 1.00 5.00 Bituminous clay 1.00 Hidden 52.00 Greenish gray shale, exposed perhaps 2.50 Coaly matter, (B 801 c) 1.20 Soft mud and fragments of shale 0.20 Coaly matter 1.00 Greenish gray shales, exposed perhaps. 1.50 Hidden 145.00 Sand rock, exposed perhaps 1.00 Soft clay 0.30 Soft COAL 2.10 Hard COAL, (K 952 p), LOWER BED 2.60 4.70 Hidden 35.00 Sandstone, (Y 634 m), exposed perhaps 1,50 137 Feet. Hidden 25.00 Soft sand rock, exposed perhaps 1.00 Bad coal, (Q 440 d) 0.15 Hard dark gray clay, exposed perhaps 2.50 Hidden 30.00 Sandstone, (Y 634 n), exposed perhaps 2.50 Hidden 240.00 Sand rock ? Gray clay ? Poor coal, (Q 438 g) 1.50 Coal slate ? 4.75 Hidden 115.00 Shales, exposed perhaps 3.00 Bad coal, (U 513 w) 0.50 Shales, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden ....105.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 1.50 Hard coal mixed with a little clay, (U 507 r) 2.30 Good coal, but a little soft ...' 0.50 2.80 Gray shales, exposed perhaps 2.50 Hidden 7.00 Soft clay, exposed perhaps 2.50 Hard coal mixed with a little clay 0.35 Soft clay 0.20 Good coal, (U 507 1) 0.70 1.25 Gray shales, exposed perhaps 2.50 Hidden 180.00 Coal, (E406ab) 0.35 Light bluish sand rock, exposed perhaps 2.50 Hidden 35.00 Good coal 0.25 Sandy rock 0.15 Bad coal (B 869 bb) 0.35 0.75 Coal slate .. 0.35 138 Feet. Hidden 28.00 Hard brown sand rock 2.00 Ralher hard brown sandy clay 2.00 Reddish brown bad coal 0.30 Soft gray clay 0.10 Coal 0.10 Soft gray clay 0.30 Coal 0.10 Reddish brown soft clay 0.20 Hard gray clay 1.10 Soft whitish brown clay 0.30 Hard dark gray clay 0.50 Coal 0.10 Soft dark gray clay .- 0.30 Coal O.GO Soft dark gray clay 0.20 Bad coal 0.45 Soft light gray clay 0.10 Coal 0.15 Soft light gray clay 0.05 Bad coal, (Q 532 a) 0.80 5.75 Hard reddish brown clay, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 15.00 Reddish gray coarse grit, (Y 629 jb), exposed per- haps 3.00 Hidden .' 30.00 Reddish gray sandy clay, exposed perhaps 1.00 Soft gray clay 0.10 Coal 0.20 Soft whitish gray clay 0.10 Coal 0.70 Reddish brown fine sand rock 0.30 Coal 0.10 Reddish bad coal, (Y 646 fa) 0.45 1.85 139 Feet. Whitish hard gray clay, exposed perhaps 1.00 Hidden 25.00 Soft gray clay , 0.10 Coal, (Q 534 ej 0.30 Hard gray clay, exposed perhaps 3.00 Hidden 30.00 Hard gray clay, (U 383 a), exposed perhaps 3.00 2040.06 4. Coal. The only mineral of any economical value within the survey is the coal ; and of that three workable beds are exposed. The Lower Bed was found at only one point (K 252 p), and is the same as the Poronai No. I, or Bottom (workable) coal. Although it is 4. 7 feet thick at the Nuppaoraanai exposure it averages at nine places in Poronai only 3.67 feet in thickness ; or taking all ten places together 3.77 feet. Supposing it to have become generally thicker towards Nuppaomanai it may be taken as four feet and a half thick. The Middle Bed is that of (CJ 329 d) and is the same as the Poronai No. IV coal (that of (L 602 ba) ). It is exposed at ten places in Nuppaomanai with a thickness of from 2.5 feet to 5.8 feet of coal, and an average of 3.96 feet ; but at five more places in Poronai, of 5.79 feet ; or an average in all together of 4.75. As some of the Nup- paomanai exposures are perhaps imperfect, it is probably safe to count even there on an average thickness of four feet and a half. The Upper Bed is only exposed in Nuppaomanai at (Y 552 c) with a thickness of 7.2 feet of coal ; but it corresponds to the Poronai No. V coal (or that of (L 602 cb)), which is exposed at three places in Poronai with an average there of 5.1 feet of coal; giving an average of 5.87 feet for all four places. In spite, therefore, of the 140 greater thickness at Nuppaomaimi it would perhaps be safest not to count upon more than six feet there. The Poronai No. II coal (averaging 3.56 feet at four places) has not heen seen at nil at Nuppaonwimi, but may be discovered at some future time. It lies about 80 feet above the Poronai No. I. The Poronai No. Ill Bed (averaging there 3.33 feet of good coal) seems at Nuppa- omanai to be the coal of (B 801 c) with 2.2 feet, of "coaly matter"; perhaps an imperfect exposure. The Poronai No. VI (or (L 576 i) ) Bed (averaging there 4.3 feet of good coal) seems to correspond to the "thin traces of coal" at (U 330 k) ; and perhaps a more thorough opening there might bring a workable bed to light. The Poronai No. VII Bed (averaging 4.7 feet of coal at two places there) seems at Nuppaomanai to be perhaps the bed of (E 323 t), " one foot of bad coal " and that of (K 943 p) " four feet of bad coal " ; and if the former is a complete exposure of the bed and the quality has not been underestimated (by the assistants) at either place, the bed is quite unworkable for the present in Nuppaomanai. It is however not at all improbable that some of these four beds found so satis- factory at Poronai may prove on further exploration to be workable at Nnppaomanai also. Owing to the very steep dips at Nuppaomanai and the fact that most of the coal exposures are either right at rock sad- dles or close by them, the coal (except the Lower Bed) has a crushed and, at the outcrop, very rotten or much weather- ed and dirty appearance. As the beds, however, are the same as those at Poronai where the dips are gentler, and owing to the shortness of the distance (scarcely a league; there can really have been originally no great difference in the beds themselves; it is perhaps best to judge by their appearance at Poronai of their character as it will be found in the less disturbed portions of Nuppaomanai and at a good depth below the weathering influences of 141 the outcrop. Assays have been made and published of samples from the two upper beds as found atPoronai Nos. IV and V. The outcrops of the three Nuppaomauai beds owing to to the steepness of the dips are for the most part but little affected in respect to direction by the varying height of the ground, and for the same reason are nearly parallel to each other and generally not far apart. They curve round the north-west anti- clinal in an oval shape ; and in somewhat similar form encircle the summits of the small middle saddle and its two little north-eastern branches ; and in irregular ess shape pass around the two bnsins and eastern saddle of the group of four north and south axes ; ending with a nearly straight course northerly to the edge of the survey, at a distance of nearly a mile from the extreme eastern edge. The other Poronai beds would also have their outcrops in general parallel and near to these and would therefore probably be not difficult to find now in searching along the bottom of the narrow valleys with the help of the map, which shows the place of the three beds. The same map enables us to measure the extent of those beds within the survey, and taking into account their thickness and the steepness of the dip to calculate their cubic contents, and reckoning a cubic yard to the ton to give the number of tons of each above a given level. Of the Upper Bed, then, there are 148 acres (179,000 tsnbo) or (at a thickness of six feet) 2,205,000 tons above the lowest natural drainage level, which is for the north- western and middle saddle, about 220 feet above the sea, and for the norlli and south basins and saddles about 370 feet above the sea. Within 500 feet below those levels there are 235 acres (284,000 tsubo) or 3,765,000 tons; making in all above that depth 383 acres (463,000 tsubo) or 5,970,000 tons. Besides that at a greater depth but 142 less than 4,000 feet below sea level there are probably 650 acres (785,000 tsnbo) or 11,200,000 tons; making the whole workable amount of the bed to be 1,033 acres (1,248,000 tsubo) or 17,170,000 tons. The Middle Bed in like manner underlies 150 acres (182,000 tsubo) above the lowest natural drainage level (about 220 feet above the sea at the two western saddles and 370 feet above the sea at the eastern ones) and at a thickness of four feet and a half would amount there to 1,430,000 tons. Within 500 feet below drainage there are 243 acres (293,000 tsubo) or 2,440,000 tons; making in all above that deptli 393 acres (475,000 tsubo) or 3,870,000 tons. In addition, at a lower depth but not more than 4,000 feet below sea level there are probably 800 acres (970,000 tsubo) or 8,200,000 tons; making the whole amount of workable coal in the bed within the limits of the survey to be 1,193 acres (1,445,000 tsubo) or 12,070,000 tons. Of the Lower Bed there are likewise above the lowest natural drainage level (about 240 feet above the sea at the two western saddles, and about 600 feet above the sea at the eastern ones) 67 acres (81,000 tsubo) or 560,000 tons, reckoning the thickness at four feet and a half. Within 500 feet below drainage there are 153 acres (184,000 tsubo) or 1,440,000 tons ; making in all above that depth 220 acres (265,000 tsnbo) or 2,000,000 tons. Moreover, between that depth and 4,000 feet below sea level there are probably 930 acres (1,125,000 tsubo) or 9,100,000 tons ; making the whole amount of the work- able coal of this bed within the survey to be 1,150 acres (1,390,000 tsubo) or 11,100,000 tons. , All three beds together, then, have 4,195,000 tons above ^ natural drainage level ; 7,645,000 tons within 500 feet below that level; or 11,840,000 tons in both portions together. Besides that, between the lower (500 foot) -143 level and 4,000 feet below the sea there are probably 28,500,000 tons ; making the whole amount of workable coal of the survey, in the three beds, to be 40,340,000 tons. The numbers of acres of the different beds are not to be simply added together like the tons, because some portions of one bed in many places overlap portions of an- other bed. 5. Shipment. There are no navigable streams nor roads at present within the limits of the survey. The Ikushibets which just crosses the southern edge of the tract is scarcely navigable for log canoes during a great part of the year ; and probably could not be made navi- gable for coal barges or canal boats without far too great expense for locks in a fall to the Ishcari at Horiimuibuto of about a hundred feet. Owing also to the remarkable crookedness of the stream the distance would be very great. The nearly equal height of fall and the number of locks required would likewise make it probably too costly to dig a canal more directly across the great swamp to the Ishcari River near the mouth of the Bibai ; although the distance from one of the upper bends of the Ikushibets would be only seven miles and a half (3 ri) and from another bend lower down only five miles and a half (2^ ri) ; and the distance would be even two miles (| ri) shorter, to a certain branch of the Bibai, that is nearly in the straight line. In case, however, a canal should be du BENJ. SMITH LYMAN, Chief Geologist and Mining Engineer. Miyohoji, Echigo ; 2nd September, 1876. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. REPORT ON THE P O R O N A I COAL SURVEY; ACCOMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF THE COAL LANDS AND BY A TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP AND A PROFILE SECTION OF A SURVEY FOR A RAIL ROAD LINE TO HORUMUIBUTO; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. TOKEI: PUBLISHED BY THE KAITAKUSHI, 1876. 149 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HOKKAIDO. REPORT ON THE PORONAI COAL SURVEY; ACCOMPANIED BY A GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP OF THE COAL LANDS AND BY A TOPOGRAPHICAL MAP AND A PROFILE SECTION OF A SURVEY FOR A RAIL ROAD LINE TO HORUMUIBUTO ; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LY- MAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. 1. SITUATION. 2. LAY OF THE LAND. 3. GEOLOGY. 4. COAL. 5. SHIPMENT. 6. MAP. His EXCELLENCY K. KURODA, Kaitakucho'kuwan. SIR: I have the honor to make you the following report on the Porouai Coal Survey, made chiefly in 1873 and 1874. 1. Situation. The survey has in general a nearly square shape with some large notches in its sides and is, about two miles (four-fifths of a ri) long from north to south and from east to west, and amounts in all to 1,740 acres (2,105,000 tsubo) or 2.7 square miles. It covers nearly the whole of the head waters of the Poronai valley and reaches to within about a mile of its mouth on the Ikushibets a large branch of the Horumui (perhaps strict- ly the main stream), 150 2. Lay of the Land. The Poronai Brook flows out at the Dorth- western corner of the survey ; and the valley of its main branch, with a westerly course, fills the north- ern part of the tract ; but from a large south-western branch near the middle of the great square several smaller branch valleys radiating to the south-west, south and south-east fill up the remainder. There is commonly a strip of comparatively flat land about 300 yards wide along the brook up to the main forks ; and from there to Huyakawa village (so called) about one hundred yards wide; but the rest of the streams generally flow with a rapid fall at the bottom of steep hill sides on either hand. The main brook on leaving the tract is about 150 feet above the sea ; but the hills, almost everywhere steep, rise in the northern part of the survey to 800 feet, in the central and south-western to 1,000, and on the south-eastern to 1,300 feet. The land is everywhere covered with forest and al- most everywhere with bamboo grass (Ai'tindiiinria) ; and is wholly uninhabited by men. There is however one large bark hut at the principal one of the forks near the centre of the tract and the place has been called Hayakawa village in honor of the cooly who first brought the Poronai coal to the notice of the government, more than three years ago 3. Geology. T\\e geological structure through the greater part of the survey hits been very fully made out, and is in general very simple. The rock beds lie iu the form of a great saddle with the axis running nearly north-east and south-west ; and plunging towards the north- east, from near the south-west corner of the survey, the highest point of the saddle j then near the north-eastern corner of the survey rising again in the same direction. The dips are comparatively gentle (45 and less) on the northwestern side of the saddle; but very steep (60 or more) on the other side. The plane of the axis, then, has a very marked iucliuatiou towards the north-west, and a line 151 drawn along it at one level would, owing to varying steepness of dip, not be exactly parallel to a line upon it at another level. Such a line moreover would not be straight ; because the shape of the north-western side of the saddle is affected by a shallow basin that is impressed upon it with an axis running about north and south ; and the axis is impressed to some degree with a like curve, or a gentle convexity towards the south-east. The same tendency to a north and south folding of the rock seems to have produced certain small faults of a few feet or a few yards, six or seven of which have been found upon or near the main (north-westerly) branch above Hayakawa village ; but their extent and dip are not yet known. The two sets of axes, north and south and north-east and south-west, are also seen to exist together to a still more marked degree in the Nuppaomanai survey and can also be perceived in the Bibai survey where the north-east and south-west direction is the principal one again. In the Saukebibai survey still further north, the north and south direction is the only one yet observed. The structure in the south-eastern corner of the tract has not yet been studied out, owing to lack of observations. The rocks of the survey belong wholly to the Horumui (or Brown Coal) Group ; and the following is a section of them (from above downwards) that has been made out from a combination of all the observations in the field by means of the geological and topographical map, a much more correct and complete section than the one I was able over two years ago to prefix to the chemical report on our Yesso coals : Feet. Good coal, (B 685 a) 1.79 Hidden 15.00 Coal traces, (B 682 1 ) Hidden 30.00 152 Feet. Coal traces, (B 682 k) Hidden 35.00 Good coal 0.35 Soft poor coal , 0.15 Good coal (B 670 r) 1.50 Soft poor conl 0.20 Coal slate 2.00 Coal 0.15 4.35 Hidden 55.00 Coal traces, (B 682 i) Hidden 480.00 Greenish gray sand rock, (B 6G9 1 ) with fossils (clams), perhaps 2.50 Hidden 145.00 Hard grayish brown clay, ( Y 417 ma), exposed per- haps 3.00 Hidden 270,00 Sand rock, exposed perhaps 3.00 Coal 2.80 Hidden 170,00 Bluish gray sand rock weathering brown 1,80 Coal (K 745 ia) 1.70 Coal slate 0.50 Grayish brown soft clay 1.30 Light gray soft clay with a little coal 0.80 Hidden 130.00 Light gray coarse sand rock 2.00 Good COAL, (Y 411 gb), No. VII 1.40 Bony coal 0.90 Poor COAL 1 .40 COAL mixed with grny clay 1.80 5.50 (At (K 746 b) the same bed has 6.60 of "good COAL") Coaly clay , 0.80 153 Feet. Hidden 75.00 Greenish gray slmly sand rock weathering brown... 8.00 Beau size pebble rock with white pebbles and with a O.o seam of black coal slate in the middle 0.30 Coal slate 0.20 Same pebble rock 1 .00 Hidden 0.80 Coal (L 577 fa), exposed 0.50 Hidden 29.00 Gray sand rock with fine black specks, weathering brown, exposed about 8.00 Bony coal 0.05 Good COAL (L 576 i), No. VI 4.20 Bony coal 0.05 Black clay 0.10 Bony coal 0.50 Rotten coal 0.10 5.00 Good bluish gray soft fire cjay 1.50 Hidden 8650 Irregular bed of coal (L 576 in) 0.80 Hidden 42.00 Greenish gray sand rock weathering brown, ex- posed perhaps 8.00 Gray shales, rather soft 1.00 Soft coal 0.60 Bony and soft coal mixed 0.25 Good c al with 0.02 of slate at 0.35 from the top (L 581 p) 1.00 Black coal slate with a very little coal 0.50 Blackish soft shales dark gray at top 1.00 Bony coal 0.60 3.95 Grey soft shales " 3.00 Greenish gray sand rock weathering brown, ex- posed perhaps 8.00 154 Feet. Hidden 1.50 Rotten coal (606p b), about .'. 1.00 Hidden 73.00 Hard dark gray shales * 0.20 Coal (L 606 oa) 0.50 Hard dark gray shales 0.20 Hidden 13.00 Blackish shales with 0.10 of poor coal in the middle and 0.20 of same at bottom (L 604 kc) 2 00 Dark gray shales, exposed about 0.30 Hidden 30.00 Coal quite hard (L 581 qa) 1.00 Black slate 0.02 Very hard coal ...0.40 1.40 Dark gray clay 0.20 Dark gray shale bluish at top, exposed 0.30 Hidden 13.50 Dark gray and blackish clays: 1.20 Crushed coal 0.90 Dark gray and blackish shales 50 Coal poor or crushed (L 604 ka) 0.95 2.35 Black coal slate 0.85 Hard gray sandy shales, exposed 1.00 Hidden 50.00 Blackish coal slate 0.50 Coal 0.75 Dark gray shale 0.65 Coal 0.80 2.20 Blackish coal slate 0.05 Greenish gray sand rock dark at top 0.70 Hidden, about 4.00 Greenish gray sand rock weathering brown, about 1.00 Dark gray and black coal slate 3.40 Coal, poor, soft and tender 0.45 155 Feet. Dark coal slate 0,40 Good firm COAL (L 602 cb), No. V 1.70 Dark gray and black coal slate 0.45 Poor coal, tender ...0.40 Good firm COAL 1.50 Dark shale 0.10 Good firm COAL 1.60 Hard blackish coal slate and coal mixed 0.30 Very hard COAL 0.65 7.55 Blackish coal slate 0.20 Soft blackish clay 0.30 Light gray clay shale, exposed 0.50 Hidden 19.00 Brown weathered shale, exposed perhaps 2.00 Black coal slate 0. 1 5 Coal bony 0.65 Blackish coal slate 1.20 Coal 0.10 Blackish coal slate ...0.30 Coal 0.25 Blackish coal slate 0.05 Coal 0.05 2.60 Hard greenish gray sand rock weathering brown... 0.70 Blackish coal slate, perhaps thin streaks of coal 1.85 Hard dark gray sand rock 1.30 Dark, mostly black, coaly shale 4.70 Coal 0.30 Greenish gray sand rock, weathering brown 1.20 COAL 1.60 Black coal slate 3.20 COAL (L602ba), No. IV 5.00 9.80 Black coal slate, hard .. 1.50 Hidden 100.00 Coal (L 586 r). ! ' 66 156 Feet. Dark gray hard shale 0.20 Hidden 50.00 Greenish sand rock weathering brown 2.50 Black coal slate, hard 0.20 COAL very firm (L 586 ta), No. Ill 4.00 Dark hard shale 0.05 Hidden 16.00 Greenish gray sand rock 0.80 Black or bluish hard coal slate 2.30 Coal 0.45 Blackish hard coal slate 1.50 Coal, (L 587 v) 0.15 2.10 Black coal slate, hard 0.65 Blackish gray shales, hard 1 .25 Black coal slate, hard with trace of coal 0.30 Dark gray shales.... 0.50 Hidden 53.00 COAL very firm (L 587 ba), No. II 3.00 Black coal slate hard, perhaps partly coal.. .0.35 COAL 0.20 3.55 Clay soft, exposed perhaps 0.10 Hidden 20.00 Coal y possibly in very small part bony, (L 587 bb). 2.80 Gray shales, exposed about 0.20 Hidden 25.00 Coaly brown rock 0.20 Coal slate 0.30 Coal (Q 128 1) 0.70 Blackish gray clay 0.40 Hidden 10.00 Coal (L 587 da) 0.55 Black slate 0.10 Hidden 3.00 Dark gray shale, about , 0.50 157 Feet. Black slate (L 587 d) 1.60 Dark gray shales, about 0.70 Black slate, perhaps 0.30 Hidden 9.00 COAL (T 145 a), No. I 2.00 Dark blackish coal slate, hard 1.20 COAL 0.15 Black coal slate, hard 0.30 COAL 0.15 Black coal slate 0.05 COAL very hard 1.65 550 Dark gray hard shales, blackish on the sur- face, aboat 0.50 Hidden 12.00 Greenish gray sand rock, exposed perhaps 1.00 Hidden 3.00 Greenish gray sand rock, exposed perhaps 1.00 2,239.90 4. Coal. With the exception of some large balls of limestone which seem to contain a certain amount of carbonate-of-iron ore, the only mineral of economical importance is the conl, of which seven workable beds are exposed. The Bottom (workable) Coal, or No. I, is that of (T 145 ), and it is exposed at nine places in Poronai with an average thickness of 3.67 feet of good firm coal. One more exposure in Nuppaomanai raises the average for all ten places to 3.77 feet. The No. II Coal is that of (L 587 ba), which is ex- posed at four places with an average thickness of 3.56 feet of good firm coal. No exposure of the bed has yet been found outside of Porouai. 158 The No. Ill Coal is the one exposed at (L 586 to) and at two other places in Poronai with an average thick- ness of 3.33 feet of good firm coal. It is also exposed at one place in Nuppaoinanai and at one place in the Bibai survey and the average of all five is 3.14 feet of coal. The No. IV Coal is the one of (L 602 ba) of which five exposures have been found at Poronai with an average thickness of 5.79 feet of good coal; and ten exposures at Nuppaomanai with an average for all fifteen of 3.96 feet of good coal; but some of the Nuppaomanai exposures are perhaps imperfect ones. The No. V Coal is exposed at (L 602 cb) and at two other places in Poronai with an average for all three of 5.10 feet of good coal; and at one place in Nuppaomanai, making the average for the four places 5.87 feet. The No. VI Coal is that of (L 576 i) and is exposed also at another place in Poronai with an average for the two of 4.30 feet of good firm coal. The two places are those which were marked last year as good places to begin mining coal, and are near the end of the main rail- road line and of its branch. The same bed shows "thin traces " of coal only at Nuppaomai; but has perhaps not been properly opened there yet. The No. VII Coal is exposed at (Y 411 gb] and at another place in Poronai with an average of 4.70 feet of coal that is probably good; and there are two other ex- posures (perhaps imperfect ones) at Nuppaomanai which reduce the average of all four to 3.80 feet and make the quality still more doubtful. Specimens of the coal of the Nos. IV, V and VI beds were assayed by Mr. Munroe, and the results were pub- lished in his report over two years ago. The true relative position of the different beds had at that lime been far less satisfactorily ascertained than it has been now; so that a few words are necessary here to explain 159 to which of the above mentioned beds the assayed speci- mens belonged; and some of the principal results of the assays and analyses may be recalled by the two accom- panying tables. In descending order: ' The (L 576 i) Coal is the No. VI Bed, and is the same as that of (L 1,996 b}. The (L 602 a) Coal is the No. V Bed, and is the same as that of (L 602 cb] and (L 506 m). The (L 602 ba) Coal is the No. IV Bed, and is the same as that of (L 602 ca), (L 603 -* c