UC-NRLF B M iaa ass .OLOGICiL .'URVKY OF JAPAN. REPORTS PROGRESS 1878 AND 1879 ; BENJAMIN SMITH LHfAN T O () K E I GIFT OF GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OP JAPAN, REPORTS OF PROGRESS FOB 1878 AND 1879; BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN, TOOKEI : PUBLISHED BY THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, 1879. '**. ' . /': ; ' ' .i? c. o <-> y EARTH SCIENCES LIBRARY CONTENTS. Page REPORT OF PROGRESS FOR 1878 1 Introductory 1 Objects of the Survey 1 Plan for the year 3 The assistants 4 General sketch of the year's work 5 Field work 6 Surveying 6 Trial wells 7 Improvement of methods 9 Pumps 9 Tubbing 10 Electric light 11 Reflector 12 Ventilating 13 Horse power ." 13 Water power 14 Office work 16 My own journeys 16 Tootoomi journey 16 The long journey 17 Yedo to Nikkoo 17 Nikkoo to Ashio 18 Ashio copper mines 20 Mines 20 Product 21 Cost 22 Aehio to Takatoku 23 Senoo copper mine 23 344061 II Page Takatoku to Ikari 24 Takinoyu hot springs 24 Kawaji hot springs 24 , Koshiozawa copper 24 Ooshiozawa copper 24 Arayu hot spring 24 Rock exposures 24 Ikari to Wakamatsu 25 Yunohara hot springs 26 Ashinomaki hot springs 26 Oyanoyu hot spring 26 Higashiyama hot springs 26 Ishigamori gold mines 27 Onogawamine 28 Wakamatsu to Tonokuchi 28 Wakamatsu to Ooshio 29 Ooshio salt wells 29 Atsushio hot salt springs ....*, 30 OosLio to Tsugawa 30 Kusakura copper mines ....: 32 Hadate silver mine 32 Tsugawa to Kaeujima 32 Kiyoogawa coal places 32 Kusoodzu oil 33 Kasujima to Kurokawa 33 Kurokawa to Niitsu 33 Niitsu to Dooyama 33 Dooyama to Imajoo 33 Imajoo to Tsuruga 34 Itatori magnetite 34 Tsuruga to Mikata 34 Mikatamica 35 Mikata to Obama 35 Oniu lapidaries 35 Obama to Hongoo 35 Nojiri copper mines 36 Hongoo to Yura 36 Maedzuru copper mines 36 Kanazaki copper mines 37 Nobara lead mines 38 Harbors 38 Yura to Miyadzu 38 Miyadzu to Toyooka 40 Ill Page Toyooka to Ikuno 41 Ikuno silver and copper mines 42 Geological features 42 Silver mines 42 Metallurgical works 44 Kanagase copper mines 44 Product and cost 44 Ikuno to Muraoka 45 Nakaze copper mine 47 Takai gold mines 47 Ushirodani gold mine 47 Muraoka to Yumura 47 Yumura hot springs 48 Minerals near Yumura 48 Yumura to Iwai 49 Kamoo silver mine 49 Kamoo copper mine 49 Iwai hot springs 49 Iwai to Tottori 50 Minerals at Tottori 50 Tottori to Yonago 51 Yonago to Mori and Yasugi 52 Shinuto copper mines 52 Yasugi to Matsue 52 Adakae copper mines 53 Hoomanzan mines 53 Ushironotani mines 64 Mimasaka menaccanite 55 Yada coal mines 55 Akasakicoal mines 56 Matsue pottery..... 56 Fujina potteries 66 Mutsue to Tamatsukuri 57 Tamatsukuri hotsprings 57 Tamatsuk uri lapidaries and magatama 58 Oki obsidian 58 Tamatsukuri to Minari 59 Minari iron region 59 Magnetic iron ore 59 Amegawa iron works 60 Furnace 61 Process 62 Blast 64 Fuel... , 64 IV x Page Steel breaking 65 Labor 65 Prices 65 Expense 66 Yield 66 Exactness 67 Une iron works 67 Furnace and methods 67 Charges 68 Clay 68 Slag 68 Product 68 Bingo process 69 Improvements of the method 69 Hydraulic washing 70 Carriage 71 Stone coal 72 Flux :... 72 Breaking ' 73 Blast 73 Furnace : 73 Amount of ore .- 74 Minari to Kisuki 73 Ore washing near Minari 75 Kisuki finery 76 Hearths 76 Process ; 77 Kisuki to Udoo 78 Udoo copper mines 7^ Geological features 79 Mines , 80 Metallurgy 81 Yield 82 Prices 82 Advice 82 Udoo to Ottatsu 83 Ottatsu copper mines 83 Geological features 83 Yield 84 Ashidani copper mine 84 Ottatsu to Koshi 85 Koshi iron sand 85 Koshi toTaki 85 Taki to Oota ... 86 V Page Oota to G-inzamnachi 86 Iwami silver mines 87 Geological features 87 Mines 88 Furnaces 89 Adaclii Soemon's furnaces 89 Upper furnaces 92 Yield and cost 95 Advice 96 Grinzanmachi to Nishida 97 Nishida alumstone 97 Nishida coal traces 97 Yunotsu hot springs 97 Nishida to Hamada 98 Hamada to Tsuwano 99 Sasagatani copper mines 100 Tsuwano to Yamaguchi 100 Zoomeki copper mines 100 Mr. Takashima's geological map 101 Yamaguchi hot springs 101 Yamaguchi to Funaki 102 Ftinaki coal field 102 Coal mines 105 Advice 106 Funaki to Shimonoseki 107 Shimonoseki toNaogata 107 Ootate coal mines 108 Naogata to Igisu Ill Kodake coal mines Ill Aida coal mines Ill Hanase coal mines ~ 112 Chikuzen-Buzen coalfield 113 Igisu to Fukuoka 113 Sasaguri coal mines 114 Fukuoka minerals 114 Fukuoka coal mine 115 Fukuoka to Karatsu 115 Karatsu to Tokusue 116 Takeari coal mines 116 Hieda coal mines 117 Kishiyama coal mines.... 118 Matsura valley coalfield 119 Tokusue to Imari 120 VI Page Tmari to Arita 121 Imabuku coalfield 121 Arita potteries 121 Kaolin quarries 121 Process 123 Kilns 124 Statistics 124 Advice 125 Arita to Nangasaki 126 Nangasaki minerals 128 Matsusliima coal 129 Nangasaki to Sonogi 130 Sonogi to Ureshino 130 Ureshino hot spring , 131 Ureshino to Takeo 131 Takeo hot spring 131 Takeo to Hachinosu 131 Hachinosu coal mines ..., 132 Taku coal section 7 ... 132 Hachinosu coals 134 Mines ". 134 Taku coal field .' 13(5 Hachinosu to Miike 137 Miike coal mines 137 Section compared 140 Mines 141 Miike to Nobarauchi 142 Kaba coal mines 142 Nobarauchi coal mines 142 Miike coal field 143 JSTobarauchi to Kumamoto 143 Kumamoto minerals 144 Kumamoto to Kawajiri 145 Amakusa coal 145 Western coal fields 146 Amount of coal 146 Advice 150 Surveys 1 50 Taxes 150 Reclaiming land from the sea 151 Kagamishinchi gas 152 Japanese drive wells 152 Kawajiri to Yatsushiro 153 Hitooyama shell heaps 153 VII Page Yatsushiro to Kooda 155 Kooda potteries 155 Kooda to Hinagu 156 Hinagu hot springs 156 Hinagu to Yunoura 156 Yunoura hot spring 158 Yunoura to A gune 158 Agune salt works 159 Agune to Seigano 160 Seigano gold mines 160 Seigano to Kagoshima 162 Yudahot springs 163 Tsuboya potteries 163 Tanoura potteries 165 Kagoshima minerals 167 Taniyamatiii mines 169 Kagoshima to Yamagano 173 Yamagano gold mines 17-i Yamagano to Kuyaina 177 Uchinono copper mines ... 178 Kuyama to Miyazaki 178 Shikamura antimonymine 178 Kamikita coal 179 Minamigata coal 179 Kitagata coal 179 Miyazaki to Mimidzu 179 Yamage antimony .*..... 180 Osudzuyama gold mines 180 Mimidzu to Xobeoka , 180 Nobeoka to Ooita, 188 Yato copper mines 1^1 Washidani chromite... ... 182 Kiura and Obira mining region 183 Ooita minerals : 186 Ooita to Nakanose 186 Koozaki copper mines 186 Xakanose to Saganoseki 188 Saganoseki to Yawatahama 188 Hidzuchi copper mines 188 Yawatahama to Matsuyania 188 Saridani copper mines 189 Matsuyania minerals 189 Doogo hot springs 191 Matsuyania to Koochl 191 Uchiai copper mine 191 VIII Paga Concluding comments 192 Additional information for future reports 192 Comparison of the coal iron and other metals in Japan 193 Koads 195 Topographical-geological surveys 196 Assistants 197 REPORT OF PROGRESS FOR THE FIRST HALF ) OF 1879, } - General Outline 199 Assistants 1 99 My own work 00 Remainder of journey 200 Koochi minerals 200 Koochi to Akaoka 201 Akaoka to Kaari 201 Naari lignite 203 Kaari to Shijiku ... v 203 Shijiku to Tokushima .'. 204 Tokushima minerals 205 Tokushima to Wakayama " 206 Awaji Island , ; 206 Wakayama minerals ..' , 207 Wakayama to Sakai 208 Sakai minerals 209 Sakai to Oozaka 209 Oozaka minerals ;.... 209 Oozaka to Hiyoogo 209 Hiyoogo minerals 210 Hiyoogo to Kiyooto 210 Kiyooto minerals 210 Kiyooto to Ooteu 211 Ootsu minerals 212 Ootsu to Inohana 213 Kurotaki lead mines 214 Inohana to Kusuwara 214 Kusuwara to Hagiwara 214 Hagiwara coal mines 215 Kusuwara to Tsu 216 Tsu minerals 216 Tsuto Kuwana 218 Kuwana potteries 218 Kuwana to Nagoya 218 Nagoya minerals 219 Owari and Mikaw a potteries 219 IX Cloisonne .' 221 Minerals in addition 222 Nagoya to Shidzuoka 223 Shldzuoka minerals 225 Shidzuoka to Yedo 226 Office work 227 Report writing- 227 Mapping 228 Axes , 228 Kamoikotan rocks 229 Subdivision 229 Minerals 229 Yesso maps 230 REPORT OF INFORMATION OBTAINED) THROUGH MESSRS. KUWADA ANDV ... 231 NISHIYAMA ASSISTANT GEOLOGISTS. ) Kusakura copper mines 231 Situation 231 Geology 231 Mining- 232 Smelting 233 Statistics 233 Prices 234 Deductions 234 Funauchlzawa copper mine 237 Nameradaki copper mine 237 Tramway suggested 237 Akadani coal field 238 Fudoodaki and Unodaira coal 239 Kusoodzu Oil 239 Hot Springs in Shimotsuke, Iwashiro, Uzen and Ugo 239 Table 240 Remarks 241 REPORT ON OIL WELL STATISTICS 242 Gathering statistics of oil-weUs 242 Explanation of tables 243 Table of oil-wells in Akita Ken 244 Table of oil-wells in all Japan 247 Table summary 251 Notes to Akita oil lands 252 Prices 254 Akita 254 Kurokawa 254 Ooarato .. 254 Page Kannonji 255 Historical notes 257 Uematsu 257 Shishari Shinkooji 258 Machine boring in Japan 258 Boring in England 259 Oil Refining 260 Akita 260 Kanadzu 261 Ooarato 261 Assay 261 TABLES OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 265 Length 265 Capacity 265 Weight 266 ERRATA. Page 10, line 10 from bottom, for even read : ever. 24, 4/o>- Takinoya read : Takinoyu. 84, 11 from bottom, for crude read coarse. 190, 13 from bottom, for Frechville read: Frecliville. Pages 21, 22, 54, 80, 81, 82, 90, 91, 93, 94, 101, 187, for blister copper, read: coarse copper. Page 205, line 11 from bottom, for Takaskima, read: Toku- shima. On the MAP OF PORONAL 1st left hand columnar section, lines 2, 4, 5 from bottom, for 587 read- : 589. line 7 from bottom, for 586 read : 587. 3rd ., ,, line G from bottom, for 600 read 606. 4th ,, ,, ,, line 5 from bottom, for 5.35 5.35, read: 3.35 3.35. In the REPORT OF PROGRESS OF YESSO GEOLO- GICAL SURVEYS FOR 1875 AND SEVEN COAL SURVEY REPORTS. Page 156, line 5, for 586 read : 587. 156, lines 18, 23, 31, for 587 read : 589. ,, 157, line 1, and line 4 from bottom, for 587 read : 589. 158, line I, for 586 read : 587. In the GENERAL REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF YESSO. Page 39, line 7 from bottom, for 586 read : 587. 40, lines 7, 12, 20, 24, for 587 read : 589. In the REPORT ON THE SECOND YEAR'S PROGRESS OF THE SURVEY OF THE OIL LANDS OF JAPAN. Page in, line 22, for Hanagawa read : Hunagawa. ,, 27, ,, 13 from bottom,/or westerly read : westerly and. 31, ,, 6, for boiling it read : boiling. 34, last line, /or 12 read : 1.2. 38, line 15, for 665 read : 666|. ., 61, ,, 16, for mountain, read: mountain region. 1 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF JAPAN. REPORT OF PROGRESS FOR THE YEAR 1878, BY BEN- JAMIN SMITH LYMAN, CHIEF GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER. To His Excellency K. INOUE, Public Works Minister. SIR: I beg to make the following report of the progress of the Geological Survey of Japan during the year 1878, its first annual report. My aim is to give here a short statement of the work that has heen done and of the way the time has been spent by the assistants and myself; but to reserve the details and results of our work mainly for future special reports. As already mentioned at ihe end of my report on the second year's progress of the Geological Survey of the Oil Lands of Japan, it was decided that from the beginning of February, 1878, our survey should be made to apply to the geology of all Japan. Of course (here was no expec- tation whatever in any quarter that the geology of the whole country could be thoroughly elucidated within a year or two ; but I hoped that at least a useful, though modest, 2 beginning might be made and that- the new name and organization would serve well to reunite the varied geo- logical labours of my assistants for many and many a year after my own retirement ; since the work to be done is infinite in amount and necessarily can never be fully com- pleted as long as mineral substances shall be mined or quarried in Japan. Neither (he financial nor other cir- cumstances of the empire made it probable that a very great annual outlay could for some time to come be applied to purposes that seem indeed rapidly to be more and more appreciated here, but that in spite of their great and mani- fold importance are even in western countries still thought worthy of absorbing only an extremely small portion of the whole national revenue. From like considerations it was also clear that we must give attention more particu- larly to matters of directly practical advantage than to those that were only indirectly useful tfiough of very great weight in an educational or purely scientific point of view. It is certain, too, that affairs that have a pretty direct utilitarian bearing give very ample scope for the exercise of the highest human faculties ; and it may at least be questioned whether even so called "pure science " or " divine philosophy " would be anything better than the gratification of an idle curiosity or an opportunity for mental gymnastics were it not for tbe practical appli- cations and benefits more or less indirectly brought about, yet more or less clearly aimed at or kept in view. Especially in a subject so novel to Japan as geology was it probably advisable to begin first with its more immediately useful branches trusting that their study and practice would soon lead to a higher estimate of the value of the more remotely advantageous ones. Our attention, therefore, has for the the last half dozen years been given more especially to such geological surveying as would be a guide in regard to the working of mineral deposits, as for example, 3 the coal of Yesso, and the rock oil of Echigo and Too- toomi. There are however many other minerals in Japan that have been and are well worth mining and for which such surveys would be extremely desirable as very greatly lessening at comparatively trifling expense the risks that are at best to a sufficiently high degree unavoidable. All those surveys can best be made by a single body of geolo- gical surveyors harmoniously working and conferring to- gether and collecting as the sole receptacle for the whole country the numerous detached notes, facts and specimens that may from time to time be offered by occasional observers, official or unofficial, throughout the land, who arc generally very glad to find a repository where such gleanings may bo garnered up, and where they may be of great value as a part of the whole, though sometimes un- important by themselves. The aim, then, during tho past year has been not only to carry on and, if possible, finish the special sur- vey of the oil lands of Japan, but to complete the hasty reconnaissance of the whole country that had already been begun, with a view to learning something of its general geological structure and particularly to ascertaining what places most needed detailed surveys, either for immediate mining purposes or for a thorough underslanding of the position, extent and composition of the different formations, especially as regards useful minerals. Without first taking a general view of the whole country it would be far more likely to happen that the relative importance of different regions should be greatly misunderstood and future work very disadvantage- ously planned and carried out. It was also possible that here and there some facts of immediate use might be noticed, and advice might sometimes be given on the spot in respect to mines or minerals. Indeed the eagerness to receive such advice was almost everywhere very striking, and it was much to be regretted that without detailed surveys and greater leisure, desires of that kind could not be more fully met. It is yet quite possible, however, that in making separate reports on each of the principal places and regions visited, a careful consideration of the facts observed and noted by myself or recorded by others may lead to further conclusions and opinions of some value. Moreover, there is some reason to hope that from the notes of our survey and from various papers already pub- lished, and from a number of yet unpublished reports, notes and facts that have been collected in our office or in other branches of the government, a general account of the geology, mines, metallurgy and mineralogy of .ill Japan may be prepared that will at least be much more complete and detailed than any yet made public, and that may prove to be of importance not only to the Japanese Gov- ernment and people but to the world at large, and may serve perhaps as a satisfactory base for future more thorough investigations, The assistants of the Geological Survey of Japan have been the same that worked on the Geological Survey of the Oil Lands ; namely : Mr. T. Yamauchi, Chief Assistant Geologist. T. Inagaki, Assistant Geologist. T. Kuwada, J. Sugiura, T.Kada, ,, I. Ban J. Shimada, ,, E. Yamagiwa, S. Maeda, S. Nishiyama, M. Maeda, Accountant. Y. Akiyama, ,, J. Adachi, Clerk. 5 The two accountants have aided in the surveying aild mapping in addition to their special duties. Mr. Adachi has, during my journeys, accompanied me, and lias aided to some extent in the account keeping. The division of the assistants into parlies continued the same as in the two previous years. They have mainly confined their attention to the con- tinuation of their work on the oil surveys ; but in their journeys to and from Echigo, have made such observations as they could without delay ; and Messrs. Kuwada and Nishiyama spent a day or two in surveying at the Akadani coal mines in northern Echigo. My own attention too, while in the office, was chiefly taken up by matters con- nected with the oil surveys ; likewise a part of the time while travelling, but the rest of the time by the more general reconnaissance. I set out with Mr. Adachi for a visit to the Tootoomi oil survey on the 17th of April, and returned on the ninth of May. On the 21st of June, we started on a long journey (1,126J leagues, or about 2,800 miles), first north- ward through Aidzu to the northern and middle Echigo oil surveys and thence southward through Ishikawa Ken, the Sanindoo, around Kiushiu, through and across Shikoku, through Kii, the Kiuni, and back by the Tookaidoo. At the end of the year we had only reached Koochi in Shi- koku, and did not arrive home until the third of February, 1879. In Echigo we visited the assistants at their surveys in Kambaragoori and afterwards assembled them all at Dooyama' near Idzumozaki, where I worked with them for three weeks on the geology of their maps. The assistants (except Messrs. Sugiura, Ban and Adachi) worked in the office until 28th May, and then set out for Echigo, where they worked until late in the autumn at the surveys and mapping begun by the different parties there in 1876. Messrs. Sugiura and Ban made a trip to the Tootooini oil field from the 16th of April to the eleventh of June, to extend and correct their survey begun the year before; and, after a fortnight more spent in mapping their work in the office here, set out for their Echigo survey on the 26th of June. Messrs. Kada and Shimada returned from Echigo on the 17th of October, and the others in November ; Messrs. Yamauchi, Yamagiwa andM. Maeda as well as Messrs. Sugiura and Ban, on the tenth ; Messrs. Kuwada and Nishiyama on the 21st ; Mr. Inagaki on the 24th and Mr. S. Maeda on the 25th. FIELD WORK. Surveying. In 1876 the assistants had with almost uninterrupted fair weather done so much field work to the comparative neglect of office work that they had been unable in the short following winter sea- son to finish the mapping so far ns tolmve the geology studied out; and in the summer of 1877 they had been mostly occupied in adding to the extent of some of the surveys or in undertaking the field work of new surveys in other regions, such as Tootoomi and Akila. In the spring of 1878, however, we had under- taken to mark on the maps the probable geological structure and the outcrop of the oil bearing beds with the help of both the observed rock exposures and the very numerous well sections that had been collected together by diligent inquiry. But (in 1878) on reaching Echigo again (and it was the same in Tootoomi) the assistants found that many of the statements in regard to the depth at which oil or certain rocks had been met with in digging the wells were very inexact. The length of the fathom had been counted differently by different men, and by the same men at the upper and lower parts of the same well ; and many statements had been given with too great precision that were merely inexact remembrances of pretty old wells. It was therefore impossible to make so confident a use of the well sections as had been hoped, and rock 7 exposures were sought out with renewed zeal and thoroughness, requiring much additional surveying. The early surveying (of 1876) was also found to be in need of important correction in some places and a num- ber of new lines had to be run with the transit. More- over, a great many new wells dug in the two years (1876-78) had to be surveyed, plotted on the maps, and recorded as fully and accurately as possible. In a number of cases the depth of wells was tested and corrected bv the assistants' own measurements. Trial wells. Our intention also at starting was, after a little addition field work and mapping, to test our geolo- gical mapping by some experimental digging, if necessary, and to give advice to the country people where they would best dig for oil ; but owing to so many unexpected alter- tions in the facts ou which our geological mapping was based we were not able to give such advice quite so soon nor over so wide a space as we had hoped. Nevertheless in the Idzurnozaki region of Echigo and in Kambaragoori the probable outcrop of the oil bearing beds has through a considerable space been marked out on the ground and a few wells have already been begun in accordance with our advice, and those that have been dug deep enough to form an opinion have been so successful as to inspire the operators with far more faith in our survey than they had in some cases at first. From Tootoomi too word has come during the writing of this report, that in the past year many new wells have been undertaken, partly accor- ding to our advice, and that the result has much increased the confidence of the larger and more intelligent operators in the value of our work. As the country people were almost everywhere eager to dig deep wells on their own account, wherever we should encourage them to do so, it was unnecessary for us to undertake any such expensive works merely for the purpose of testing the geological structure, and according- ly the assistants did not at first go beyond a little super- ficial digging to try supposed outcrops or uncover im- perfectly exposed dip surfaces. After I had left Echigo, however, probably owing to an imperfect understanding of the circumstances, orders were given me by the govern- ment to instruct the assistants to begin some deep wells ; and the orders were insisted upon, in spite of my renewed attempts to explain the circumstances more clearly. Accordingly three deep wells were begun near Idzumo- zaki, and placed especially in charge of Mr. Akiyama, who on their account still remains in Echigo; and two of the wells have been remarkably successful. At my suggestion, however, the wells were at the end of January, 1879, quite removed from the Geological Survey and from my charge. It is my opinion that, although the digging of oil wells is profitable to the country people, it can be (as shown in my report for 1877) but little so, if at all, to a mercantile company (even at higher prices for oil than those that have prevailed the past year), and on the average could only result in loss to the govern- ment. We found last summer in Echigo that the cost of well digging by a mercantile company as stated in my report for 1877, Avas one-half greater than what it cost the villagers or farmers ; and it is almost absolutely un- avoidable that government work should be at least twice as costly as that of a company. The government must pay higher pi ices for labor and materials, besides the salary and travelling allowances of an official for over- sight and probably must besides sell the oil produced at a disadvantage. The country people on the other baud oversee their own work, can get labor and materials from their own families or land or can bargain for them at their own convenience and have to pay no excessive prices. The produce of the oil wells is on the average so small that, when the cost is trebled there must clearly be in general nothing but loss. There was, perhaps not un- naturally, some impatience to arrive at definite results from our survey ; but there are already good direct re- sults if our maps and advice can serve as a guide to the country people in digging their wells, and if we can prevent the waste of money by a government oil specula- tion (hat would probably be disastrous. Indirectly, lessened risk or increased certainty in oil well digging will be a good result to the nation in diminishing the' losses and augmenting I he profits and wealth of the inhabitants of the oil regions. It seems to me therefore highly unwise for our survey (in spite of the hopes entertained at the outset) to undertake deep well digging except where it may prove absolutely necessary to test some geological opinion that seems probably to be correct, but too uncertain to be a guide for private operators. Improvement of Methods. We carried an iron lift pump 10 the Tootoomi oil field for trial in the oil wells, if need be; and. during my visit there the making of a wooden plunger pump was begun. The average product of the 011 wells, as shown in my report for 1877, is so little that a very small outlay for apparatus would take away the profit, altogether; so that it is absolutely necessary to innke use only of the most inexpensive methods and work with the utmost economy. Even an iron pump with an iron pipe and pump rod would probably be too dear a luxury in most cases ; and, if the pump were to be work- ed l>y hand, there would be little or no saving in the cost of power as compared with the present system of raising the wnl or in a bucket. As the wells, however, are very narrow (about three feet and a half square), only one man can work in them at a time ; and if his time is taken up in baling water he cannot of course make so good pro- gress in digging in the few hours when the daylight is 10 sufficiently strong. A pump may therefore be at times an important convenience ; and especially so if horse power or water power should be applied to that and other pur- poses connected with the well digging. It seemed pos- sible that an iron bound wooden plunger pump with a light bamboo pump rod and a stout bamboo pipe tightly wound with cheap country made cords might be strong enough to serve for raising the surface water from some little depth (and it often penetrates only to a depth often fathoms); and it would have the advantage not merely of cheapness of first cost but of such simplicity of construc- tion that it could be made and repaired by the oounlry carpenters and blacksmiths. For a greater depth two or more separate lifts might be made use of. At any mi o the inexpensive trial of such a pump for moderate depths would readily satisfy the operators whether it would be worth their while to go to the expense of an iron pump and pipe. The wooden pump made at Tootoomi cost us only two yen and three-quarters all complete (without pipe and rod) ; and with good bamboos not wound with cords the Avater was carried safely to a height of about five fathoms. The Tootoomi operators were however so in- different in the matter (as they are little troubled with water there), that we could not get the pump made by their busy carpenters until after I came away ; and I do not know that it was even tried in an oil well at all. About the end of the year it was sent to Echigo (o bo tried there by Mr. Akiyama, if convenient, and to serve perhaps as a model for others ; but with what result AVC have not yet heard. Before its arrival, however, he used the iron pump in at least one well. While in Echigo I showed the assistants for the benefit of the well diggers how the surface water or the water of a lower portion of a well might probably be stopped out successfully by means of strong wooden fcubbing thorough- 11 iy closed on its out side at the bottom (and likewise at the top if it should not reach to the surface of the ground) by clay rammed in between it and the walls of the well above a broad support set in the rock at some distance below (he water bearing veins ; but I am not aware that the advice has yet been followed in any case. Tubbing is already made there very neatly for common water wells ; and we were told at Dooyama that it would cost, fora diameter of three feet and a half feet and a thickness of two tenths of a foot, only twenty-five cents a running foot, It is pretty clear therefore that the expense of suitable work of the kind would be much less than the cost of pumping out the water during the whole time that the well is getting dug and yielding oil. It is found that below a depth of thirty fathoms there is seldom any water to speak of, and commonly none below twenty fathoms, and often none below ten fathoms, variously in different regions. The removal -of the water either by stopping it out or by constant pumping is especially desirable, because its presence hinders the flow of the oil. We had hopes of experimenting in the field for the improvement of the lighting of oil wells which is now, by daylight merely, so dim that digging is carried on only between nine and three o'clock. We took a small portable electric mine lamp to Echigo, and tried it in the method prescribed by the Yokohama merchant of whom it was bought. It contained for a galvanic battery a small brass jar holding a porous cell in which a largo piece of coke hung from the hard rubber cover of the jar; along side there Avas a Ruhinkorff coil ; and the whole was contain- ed in a small strong wooden box to be strapped on the miner's back. A. couple of copper wires from the Ruhm- korff coil were protected by india rubber tubes and reached to a strong glass tube carried on the miner's breast and containing a Geissler tube with rarefied air and platinum 12 wire points. We had already tried charging the battery with a solution of blue vitriol but had not succeeded in making a good light, and now by the seller's; advice, after the delicate * platinum wire connections had once broken and been repaired, charged it with dilute sulphuric acid in the brass jar and nitric acid in the porous cell. The galvanic action was very strong, and a little flickering light was produced, which however disappeared within a few minutes, before it could be tried in the dark drainage drift of an oil well near by. The electric action was so strong too that on touching the connecting metallic wires or screws with the finger or a piece of metal there was a small visible spark. It was clear therefore that it would not be safe in an oil well ; for even so small a spark could set fire to the explosive gas there. It' seems extremely doubtful whether a lamp requiring so much care and apparently getting out of order so. easily can ever be safely used by the country people so entirely ignorant are they of electric matters ; though it is possible that some other electric light might be more successful. It seemed, then, the more worth while to try the plan of increasing the daylight in a well by a large reflector made of common window glass in a sash so hung that it could be turned both vertically and horizontally so as to send the sun's rays at any hour of the day down a well or along a drainage drift. For the wells and for many drifts such glass without any silvering would " totally reflect " the rays, and the cost would therefore be little. The experiment was to have been tried by the assistants after I left Echigo; but owing to busy preoccupation with the surveying and mapping it was neglected. The village well diggers were not very eager to have such an improve- ment in the light, except perhaps for drainage drifts ; though the time that digging in a well could be carried on every day might be doubled, and consequently (for 18 example) the water to be raised while digging ti well les- soned by one half. They seem to feel pretty well satisfied with the present plan of lighting the well by a large sheet of yellow oil paper hung over it at an angle of forty-five degrees, covering a hole in the roof of the grass hut built over the well ; and certainly the apparatus is inexpensive The present method of sending air into the wells was also considered while in the field, bur, would seem to be hardly capable of much improvement so long as merely human labor is employed ; for the application of such power by treading upon the oscillating top of the large wooden bellows is probably the most economical and effective mode of using human strength. If, however, horse power or water power should come into use, pro- bably the Hartz ventilator, or the trompe blast, or a revolving fan, or blowing cylinders would be a more con- venient blast apparatus. It seems pretty certain that, in many cases at least, there would be decided economy in making use of horse power (with a gin) or water power in digging the oil wells ; since so large a portion of the power required is applied in so purely mechanical a way. Nevertheless the cost of the capital needed and the expense of repairs to machinery make it advisable to begin experiments in that direction rather cautiously. I am more than ever of the opinion that the setting up of steam engines and boring machines would be unprofitable; for the experi- ment has had now for a year or more a long trial in Kubikigoori in Echigo, where the machinery that was formerly used a little near Idzurnozaki by the old Oil Company has been tried again. Although the well proved to be in an exceptionally favorable place, the progress of the work was slow and expensive on the whole, and pieces of the apparatus had to be sent for repairs to this city, some two hundred miles. But a horse gin could easily be made by the country carpenters, would not be costly and would enable decidedly cheaper power to be used than' the present human labor. It is true that in the case of shallow wells ifc would take nearly or quite as many men to attend to the horse and to the careful guiding of the water bucket or the rope net in which stones and earth are raised from the bottom of the well as it now does to do the raising altogether ; but at deep wells more lifting power is needed, up to six men or more, and there would be a saving. Besides, the same horse gin could work the blowing machine, which now in deep wells requires the labor of even as many as eight men. In Echigo, horse hire (including the horse boy) costs about double the wages of a laborer. A gin would have the advantage that after the digging of one well was finished, and perhaps one or two other very near ones, the machine conld be removed at no very great expense to any other site for a new digging. Water wheels would be more permanent, and con- sequently of less universal application ; but by rods or ropes or wires the power could be carried to a consider- able distance in any direction from its source. Particular- ly the blast might be carried in pipes very far and very conveniently, with small loss from friction ; and in the same way with compressed air used in a machine just like a steam engine a distant water wheel could give all the power needed for raising the stones, earth and water, and for blowing such power would doubtless be in many cases far cheaper than horse power ; but in other places suitable streams would be too remote, and sometimes water is in so great demand for irrigation that the farmers already in possession might require an excessive price for its use in the summer season. Although small water power machines of various kinds are extremely numerous in Japan, the total neglect of so 15 great a source of power and wealth as the larger streams might furnish is very striking. Tho reason is no doubt that the people have not yet become familiar with the methods of building large dams, nor become accustomed to accumulate and risk capital in such enterprises. Of oonr.se there is always the condition that the power can in general bo carried to no very great distance from the stream, so that the material on which the work. is to be done has to be brought to the mill and therefore the roads or other means of communication must be in such a con- dition as to make the carriage not too costly. For that reason the improvement of the waggon roads would be- come additionally important. The very damming of the rivers would be a means of improving their navigation ; and water carriage, in spite of its slowness, excels so very greatly in cheapness that it is especially desirable for Japan. The rain fall is enough and the descent of the rivers from the central mountains to the sea ample to give in the aggregate an immense amount of power. The simplest of the water machines, the little spoon shaped water lever so often seen in the country in use for pounding and cleaning rice, saves the work of a full grown man, and consequently must earn for its owner the equivalent of a man's wages, and therefore adds to the ower's wealth and to that of the state as much as is necessary for the main- tenance of at least one inhabitant, perhaps far more, if you consider that it never sleeps and is rarely indisposed or in need of a holiday. Everyman that could so be replaced by a water machine would be free to undertake other work that might be more in need of intelligence, or would have leisure for study or amusement. Increased wealth often leads merely to increased luxury, but that is not the necessary nor final result; aud if it be at all desirable that the higher human faculties should be cultivated, it is 10 certainly a decided gain that, so far a? possible, the lalior required by the human race should be accomplished by the forces of external nature, forces that are mostly derived more or less directly from the rays of the sun. Already great differences in both the wealth and en- lightenment of different/ nations can be seen to depend very much upon the extent to which natural forces arc utilised; to which a man's lifetime is not necessarily taken up in the very grossest mechanical labors, in cultivating his fields or in grinding grain or spinning and weaving by hand merely, in pounding rice with a treadmill, in carrying burdens along roads impassable to horses, or in leading single pack horses over roads too bad for waggons, in carrying by land where improved river or sea naviga- tion would make water carriage possible ; on the degree to which the streams do not flow down idly to the sea, the wind does not blow uselessly-, the tide does not rise and fall without good effect, the underground stores of coal are not left unburnt, and even the direct warmth of the sun is turned to account. Office Work. Our time in the office during the spring was chiefly taken up in mapping, especially in working out the geology with the help of numerous cross sections, as already described for the preceding winter months in my report for 1877. The accounts were also completed, ns mentioned there, with a single-entry ledger. Between my Tootoomi journey and the long journey my time was taken up in great part by the writing of that report and getting it printed*, particularly after the assistants hsul started for Echigo. MY OWN JOURNEYS. >The Tootoomi Journey. The journey to Tootoomi and back was described in my report for 1877. While there I spent a couple of days in visiting several newly discovered or newly tried oil places (at least so called), namely: Ooiso, Ogami, Hirugaya, Kurobe, 17 Nakanishi, Hirai, Uraakatatani, Shatsubonyn, Hashigara, Nakamurn, Nita, Katahama ; but found none of them to be very promising, though all but two or three had traces of oil or of oil gas. Another day with Messrs. Sngiura and Ban I verified their very careful and numerous obser- vations of the dip of rocks near Sugegaya. The rest of the time was mostly spent in working with them or alone in the office on the geology of the maps, trying to make out satisfactorily the details of the geological structure with the help of the well sections and of such additional field work as they were able to do hastily and map at once. It proved, however, to be desirable to extend the search for more rock exposures, and they both therefore staid a while after my return. Even otherwise there was no opportunity to begin or advise new wells at once, as the oil leases already grante.l were pretty full of wells, and the issue of new leases was at the moment delayed by litigation. The Long Journey. Starting on the 21st of June, by the same road as the year before (the Ooshiukaidoo), we went northward as far as Nogi (17 leagues) and then turning to the left of the main road, still northerly, within half a dozen leagues reached Tochigi near Ihe northern edge of the great Tonegawa plain. A few of the minerals of the Ken were shown to us by the Kenchoo at Tochigi : but the Ken is not very rich in productive mines and those of Ashio are reckoned by far the most important. From Tochigi we went still northwards to Irnaichi on the main road of the preceding year from Utsunomiya to Nikkoo and two leagues sou- theasterly from Nikkoo. The road for the first half of the way as far as Kanuma was nearly flat, with hills on the left growing higher and higher as we went forward. They would appear to be of the metamorphic and crystalline rocks of the Kamoikotan Group or Series, as shown by the IB- pebbles at the crossing of the Ogura river near Kanasaki, two-thirds of the way to Kanuma, including some coarse syenite, some fine, grained granite, some blackish and some light gray quartzite. Near Idzuni among the hills some three or four leagues west of Kanasaki there are said to be some very interesting large limestone caverns, also no doubt in the metamorphic Kanioikotan rocks ; but we did not delay to turn aside, and, see if possibly the caverns contained prehistoric human remains, as happens so often in western countries. As for as Kanasaki. we had since leaving home seen no rock exposures except one or two of what seemed to be old alluvium. Perhaps half a league north of Kanasaki and nearly as far south of Ni- regi, we passed an exposure of light gray granular perlite. From Kanuma the road had a much more decided, but still gentle ascent growing gradually steeper the "rest of the way to Nikkoo, Hachiishi vijlage (about 2,000 feet above the sea), with numerous road side exposures of buff, yellow or brown decomposing pumice, sometimes under- lying level bedded gray volcanic .ishes. From Nikkoo we went six leagues and a half southwest- ward on the Koodzuke road to the Ashio copper mines ; at first rising rapidly and crossing midway a pass about 4,000 feet above the sea, and then descending to the village of Ashio, still in the midst of mountains, about 2,000 feet above the sea again. The first league and a half or so was the road of the previous year to Chiuzenji with exposures at Hachiishi of quartz porphyry. Another half league further on, near Hosoo village there were still exposures of the decomposing pumice but they were soon succeeded by somewhat similar looking ones of decomposing gray granitic sand ; together with which was exposed in place here and there all the way to within half a league of Ashio village gray quartz porphyry with orfhoclase (occasionally coarse) and, at least in some cases, n o j. t/ oligoclase and quartz, without mica, in a dark or light gray, sometimes dark green, matrix which is often so scanty as to give the rock at first sight a granitic or syenitie look. The preceding year I had found river pebbles of a similar rock containing besides the two felspars and quartz in a scanty gray matrix horn- blende also, what might be called a syenite porphyry and it was said to occur in place about a league down stream from Kegonnotaki. On the Ashio road a very fe\v minute grains of yellow iron pyrites were seen in the porphyry. I suppose all these porphyries to be ancient and to belong properly with the crystalline rocks hiiherlo classed together under the Kamoikotau series. On the Chinzenji road I had also seen pebbles and ex- posures of hard, blackish gray old volcanic rock, ande- site, containing much glasfjy triclinic feldspar (pro- bably oligoclase) in small crystals, dark green pyroxene and magnetite in a grayish black matrix that was sometimes vesicular. On the way to Ashio village from half a league short of it and close up to the principal mines a league north the exposures were of black clay slate (sometimes with imperfect cleavage), like the slate near Kainaishi and elsewhere among Kamoikotan rocks* At tlio mines themselves however the rock is ", gain the gray quartz porphyry, abounding with quartz in grains of pea size in a white feldspar matrix. The rock contains also many pea and bean si/e, more or less rounded, bits of black slate ; a circumstance that was noticed too in like rock near Hosoo. Like facts observed elsewhere in the journey (see for example pp. 25, 31, 39, 40, 41) and com- pared with closely similar ones recorded nearly forty years ago as occurring in syenite in my native region (see Hitcbcock's Geology of Massachusetts, 1841, pp. 669 and 677-9), where syenite has more recently been found to contain fossil trilobites, strengthen my suspicion that 20 many if not all of the plutonic looking rocks of the Kamoi- kotan Group are in reality rnetamorphic. Tlio presence of the bits of black slate of course show that in any case the porphyry at (he mines is newer than the slate that furnished the fragments ; yet the slate that is exposed between the main village and the mines would rather appear to lie in the form of a sharp, narrow basin running northeast and southwest with the porphyry of the mines underlying it conformably on the northwest. But the dips are nearly vertical and perhaps sometimes reversed ; so that the structure is a little doubtful. The Ashio coppermines have been worked ever since 1610. They are in two groups, of which the main one at Idezawa and Akakura covers a space of half a league in diameter, and is a little over 2,500 feet above the sea, on the headwaters of three or four small valleys that descend from the Bizendate mountain as a central point, and is about a league north of Ashio village. The other group at Sunokobashi is much smaller and lies about half a league southerly from Bizendate in a small valley that empties into the Watarase River at Ashio .village. The veins are perhaps fifty or more in number, and run gene- rally northeast and southwest, though many are in other directions ; and the dip of the veins is said tp be generally about vertical. The ore is almost wholly copper ore, mainly copper pyrites (with a very little black oxide of copper); but one mine is said to yield a little galena. The greatest width of ore is in the Oogiri mine, where I mea- sured it at one point seven-tenths of a foot in width, and where for a length of about two fathoms it maintains a width of four- tenths of a foot, but then quickly becomes about one tenth of a foot or less, which is said to be the greatest width throughout the rest of the mine. The other mines are all inferior and only three of them are worked by the owner, though a score of miners work on 21 their own account some other veins that are said to be about half a tenth of a foot wide. The whole number of mines would seem to be about as large as the number of veins. They are all adits, very narrow, crooked and uneven ; some of them are up to 200 fathoms or more in length ; and in no case is there mining below natural drainage level. Both blister copper (aradoo) is made with roasting in kilns and smelting in small hearths in the old Japanese style ; and blue vitriol is manufactured with roasting, leaching, boiling down and crystallizing. It was stated to me that in the eleven months ending with May, 1878, the ore smelted amounted to 313,000 Ibs. (3,756 kamme); and that the ore (including one tenth of slag) from which the blue vitriol was made yielded about five per cent, of vitriol (and contained therefore about l per cent, of copper). Evidently by some error, however, it was stated (very precisely) that the amount of blister copper made in the last half of 1877 was 59,827 Ibs. (44,870 catties), which would have been 41 -$ per cent, of the ore smelted in the same time (143,917 Ibs.), whereas pure copper pyrites contains only 34 T 6 y per cent of copper ; and that in the first five months of 1878, the amount made was 48,800 Ibs. (36,600 catties) which would have been 28| per cent, of the ore smelted in the same time, a result almost equally improbable. At the copper mines visited by me in 1877, (Osaruzawa, Ani, Yusenji, Kauabira), where the ore is similar to that of Ashio and the same methods of washing are followed, the yield of refined copper to the washed ore smelted does not vary much from twelve per cent. It seems therefore quite probable that the yield of blister copper at Ashio in the first five months of 1878, may have been only the half of what is stated above or at most 25,000 Ibs. (3,000 kamme), about four- teen per cent, of the ore that was smelted. There are 22 also several circumstances that confirm such u low esti- mate, and show too that the amount of blue vitriol made was only about half what was stated, or about 3,333 Ibs. (400 kamme instead of 777 kainme) a mouth. The blister copper was worth last summer (subtracting the cost of freight to Yokohama, fifty cents a picul) about fifteen dollars and a half a picul ; and the blue vitriol about eight dollars and forty cents a picul. The income, then, for the first five months of 1878, after subtracting the outlay for fuel (which as near as could he ascertained was about $1,150), appears to have been at the rate of about $541 a month or $6,500 a year ; and that divided among 300 men which must apparently have been about the number of workers employed (in a population of probably 450) would give them an average of only $1.80 a month. Again, each miner is paid by the day in money twcnly cents and in food the value of 64 cents ; or in all 26-J- cents, and his tools are estimated to cost in addition six cents; making the Avhole day's work cost 32^ cents, not counting powder and light 'and special rewards for good work. The carriers are paid in like manner the vahfe of 16 A cents a day. By the piece, as stated to me, ten dollars arc paid in comparatively soft rock for cutting a length of five feet by four feet high and 2{? to three feet wide, about n month's work : and in hard rock 20 dollars for the same space, about two month's work ; and in addition the same food and tools (and probably powder and light) are sup- plied as in work by the day. The whole cost is therefore respectively at least $13.66 and $27.32, not counting the cost of carrying out. the stuff mined. Supposing (hen thecost of dressing, roasting and smelting the ore to blister copper to be about six dollars and a half (about the average in the Chiugokn, and apparently not far from the cost at Ashio in former years) leaving nine dollars as the value of a picul of copper in the ore ; and even supposing no copper to be 23 lost in smelting ; it would need an average width of about one quarter of a foot of ore that is one-half pnro copper pyrites (or somewhat richer ore than the average of washed ore at other Japanese copper mines) to pay ex- penses with the comparatively soft rock and cheap mining; for there would be in the space under consideration (reck- oning 250 Ibs. of copper py riles to the foot, and 133J Ibs. to the picul) 5x4x0. 25 x 4. x 250 x 34 T \ x ^ x 9-= 14.51 dollars in value of copper; and it would need a width of about half a foot of such ore to pay with the harder rock. There cannot in my opinion be the least pretense that a width of even a quarter of a foot would be main- tained as QII average of any large portion of the vein containing one-half its bulk of pure ore even in the Oogiri mine, much less in any of the others. It seems therefore quite sure that with present prices such thin veins in such hard rock cannot be worked with profit. We returned to Nikkoo and set out for Aidzu, passing through Imaichi again, and Oogua and Takatoku (five leagues from Nikkoo) of the preceding year's journey ;and seeing near the ferry just short of Takatoku another out- crop of the quartz porphyry like that of the Ashio Pass. At Oogua we were told about some recent attempts to reopen the long abandoned Senoo copper mine in the neighboring village of Kobiyaku, and it appears that there had been found a width of about one or even up to 2^ tenths of a foot of a mixture of copper pyrites, with some three times its own quantity of gangue that was partly kaolin ; and a specimen of the ore was shown us. It is not in the least probable that such a thin poor vein can be worked with any profit in the very hard rocks of that region. The next day, several leagues further on, a man brought us more specimens of the Senoo ore, and some of magnetic pyrites, of which he said there was a vein nine feet wide about a hundred fathoms from the copper mine. At Takatoku we entered almost at once the mountains again, and kept on up the valley northward through Oohara and (without crossing the river to see a spring on the opposite shore at Takinoya in Takiinura, which we heard of afterwards, as very hot, hut without taste or smell and apparently very pure water) through Fujiwara (near which many holes for ore were dug about a hundred years ago), to Takahara, where we saw on the opposite river bank the Kawaj i hot springs. The temperature of the main spring is 43C. and the flow perhaps a cubic foot a second. There is much gas but, it would seem, no sulphur. There is another spring a few yards down stream with a temperature of 41C. but only half as strong in quantity and with less gas; and one of rather warm water a few yards upstream of perhaps one tenth the yield of the main spring. At a spot called Koshiozawa about half a league from the village of Ikari, on our road half a dozen leagues north of Takahara, there is said to be high up the mountain a vein of copper ore, of which a good looking specimen was shown, perhaps one- half made up of copper pyrites ; and another- specimen was perhaps one-fifth copper pyrites and the rest bluish gray siliceous gangue. The country rock was described as white and very hard. A hole about three feet deep was dug there in 1872, and then temporarily abandoned. There are said to be two places at Ooshiosawa, a spot about five furlongs still further north, where there were old copper mines, adils about ten fathoms long abandoned a dozen years ago and now fallen in. It was said also that at Arayu in Shiobara, four leagues east-north-east of Ikari, there was a hot sulphur spring of abundant yield ; and that there was limestone there. From Takahara to Ikari there were many exposures of of rock still of the Kamoikotan Group, chiefly quartz porphyry, often greenish gray in color weathering light 25 brown, but sometimes with a dark gray matrix ; sometimes with slightly rounded and somewhat angular fragments of blackish siliceous slate and pinkish quartzitc, making ifc a pudding-stone ; sometimes syenitic or even a true syenite ; sometimes crumbling info gray or light brown sand ; some- limes forming high cliffs near the river or high up on the mountain side. Similar exposures were seen here and there for four leagues northward from Ikari as far as the mountain pass about 3,000 feefc above the sea, near Yoko- gawa, the boundary of Aidzn ; sometimes with rather angular pebbles as large as the fist. Thence northerly down hill by a narrow valley through Itozawa to Kawa- shima, four leagues, there were similar rocks ; and then four leagues north-easterly with a rather more open country and fewer roadside exposures through Nakaarat and Tajima to Narahara, here and there like rocks were seen, and many of their pebbles found in the shingle of (he rivers. From Narahara I crossed the river and went by the more difficult road past the Ynnohara and Ashinomaki hot springs to Wakamatsu (ten leagues), the principal town of Aidzu (about 800 feet above the sea) ; while Mr. Adachi with the baggage went by the more commonly travelled road. From what he saw it would appear that only the same ancient crystal- line rocks occur along that road. At the river crossing of Narahara there were exposures of light gray soft shaly sandrock, with nearly level dip, apparently of like age with (he Toshihels Group of Yesso or the oil bearing rocks of Echigo. It-, would seem to be of very limited extent, confined to the lowermost part of the valley, near the river level. The other exposures along the road, pretty frequent all the way to within a conple of leagues of Wakamatsn, where the valley opened out into the beauti- ful, basin like, mountain circled plain of Aidzu, were of the same ancient character as before ; and chiefly greenish 26 gray, very hard quartz porphyry, though reddish brown and crumbling towards the edge of the plain ; but just above Yamoshima there was interstratified a light gray hard metamorphic shale, and at Oogawa, about midway, there was a black clayshite with imperfect cleavage. I take it that the mountain range between Shimodzuke and Aidzu is of anticlinal structure in the main; and the slate of Oogawa may perhaps correspond to that of Ashio. The hot springs at Yunohara arc at the edge of the river, and are two in .number, besides another said to be of like character on the opposite shore. One of the two had a temperature of 45 C., and the other 62; and each a yield of perhaps twenty gallons a minute. The wafer seems (o contain no sulphur ; has a very little gas ; and leaves a very slight, white, apparently calcareous deposit- Near Ashinomaki, some half a mile below the village, there are three springs in the river shingle, through which the water escapes ; and the temperatures are 43, 43 and 41 C. There seems to be no sulphur in the water, and no taste to it ; but it forms a very slight deposit of white salt. On the opposite shore of the river is the Oyauoyu spring, said to bo of about the same temperature. From Wakamatsu we visited the Higashiyama or Tenneiji hot springs, the most celebrated of Aidzn, and distant about a league easterly, just inside the edge of the mountains, still apparently in the same ancient rocks, greenish gray and slightly decomposed. There are twelve springs be- sides four or live old ones that are now broken in, all within a length of a couple of hundred yards along a small river. The following are the names of the twelve and their temperature in Centigrade degrees, and the roughly estimated yield of some of them in gallons a minute : Oomiya, GO , 82 gals. ; Arima, 59, 60 gats. ; Yonekura, 59, much ; Mukootaki, (temperature at end of pipe across the river) 57; Yadoya, 57, 35 gals. ; Ana, 57, 10 gals. ; 27 Sooyu, 67 ; Fujiya, 56, 15 gals. ; Choojiya, 00, little ; Kitsunc, 5~, little ; Furutaki and Sliintaki (two pipes from one spring), 47; Mujina, 40, 12 gals. The water of all seerns to be of about the same quality, without sulphur, taste, smell, gas nor deposit, except a slight, white one containing silica and carbonate of lime. At Wakamatsu rainy wealher enabled me to write and send back a report on the Ashio copper mines. Also we were consulted about the Ishigamori gold mines about a league distant to the east ; and some specimens of their ore were brought to us. The vein was carefully described as at one place 0.15 ft. wide for a length of about two fathoms, but in geueral only 0.01 ft. or 0.02 ft. wide, and not by any means averaging more than 0.05 ft. in width. The ore was red ferruginous cellular quartz ; part of which (a heap described as 0.2 ft. long) they had reduced to a red powder and washed, obtaining a small quantity of magnetic iron sand that formed a heap about 0,02 ft. long or perhaps one thousandth of the ore. In the magnetic sand there were two or three minute specks of gold, per-' haps one thousandth of the little heap ; making the gold to be only one millionth of the bulk of the whole ore, or say one thousandth of one per cent, of its weight; and certainly it can hardly be ten times as much as that or one hundredth of one per cent. There was also some tabular baritc with the ore, and some granular gypsum containing a few minute crystals of copper pyrites. The country rock appears to be a greenish white, very hard quartz porphyry. Reckoning the cost of mining to be the same as at Ashio, one cubic foot or at most 125 Ibs. (15 kamme), of ore, obtained from a space 5 ft. by 4 by 0.05, would cost for mining from $13.66 to $27.32 ; and even if its gold were one hundredth of one per cent., it would be worth only four dollars. It is very clear then that there would be no profit in working the vein. It is not sur- 28 prising therefore that the mines were abandoned about two hundred years ago ; and though they were reopened by the Ono Company a few years ago were quickly given up again, We were consulted also in regard to a mine at Onogawa about eight leagues by road northerly from Wukainat.su, where an enthusiastic countryman had for about twenty years been digging an adit now 35 fathoms long, led on by a vein of "yellow shining stuff of the color of gold," per- haps iron pyrites; and at last had for nine feet been in a vein that- was said to be ash colored with red spots, and that, as he averred, had yielded when smelt- ed by him with lead a large proportion of silver. We ad- vised his patron, who furnishes his capital, and who con- sulted us, to obtain if possible an impartial and trustwor- thy analysis of the ore from the Government Mining Office. On starting forward from Wakamatsu I made an excur- sion to Tonokuchi at the mouth of the beautiful Inawa- shiro Lake (sometimes called Bandaiko), two leagues to the cast and some 1,750 feet above the sea ; and near it found blocks, apparently not quite in place, of old vol- canic, dark grayandesite, containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), augite and magnetite in a dark gray matrix- and on the way near Yastibara, at the entrance to the hills, saw an exposure of very soft tufaceous light brown gravel in which there were egg size pebbles of grayish white, long fibred pumice containing glassy triclinic felds- par (probably oligoclase), augite and magnetite. From the road there are also views of Bandaisan, a high moun- tain some three leagues to the northwest of Wakamatsu, with its top often hid in clouds, evidently from its shape a volcanic mountain, and no doubt, the source of the rocks just described, as well as of the materials of the high plateau crossed near the lake, and most likely the cause of the lake's origin by damming up the former outlet of the portion of the valley now filled with water. 29 Then we went three leagues northerly through the plain to Shiogawa on the main outlet of Inawashiro Lake ; and thence three leagues and a half to the north-eastward I visited the saltwells of Ooshio, about 1,500 feet above the sea, and a couple of leagues within the edge of the hills again, near the flanks of Bandaisan. In the village of Ooshio the only rocks to be seen were perhaps not in place, though large ; and they were dark gray andesite again, very like that seen near Tonokuchi, and containing likewise glassy oligoclase, augite and magnetite. In the village street there are two warm salt springs about ten yards apart both curbed with wood, and dug deep it was said into the rocks just described. One, fifteen feet deep has a temperature of 39 C. and the other, said to be about twenty feet deep, marks 37 C., and both are yellowish red with a great deal of iron rust, of which there is a copious deposit ; and both are very gaseous with small bubbles. The yield of each is perhaps six gallons a minute. About a hundred yards to the north, in the very edge of the village, there were five small wells, some four lo nine feet deep, four of which are still visible ; the deepest one with a temperature of 28 C. and the rest cold, but three of them at least mixed with surface water. The yield of salt water is also less than at the two main springs, and those that are mixed with other water are especially weak in salt and -one of them is colorless : but the others are red with iron rust. A hundred yards or so southwest of the main springs there is a well about nine feet deep not very salt and with a small yield of water, a little gas and a little iron rust. No salt has been manu- factured at Ooshio for half a dozen years past ; but before that, it was made, according to the villagers' statement, for a thousand years. It is known for a certainty to have been made for about 250 years. The water was allowed to stand a while, and, after the iron rust had deposited 30 itself, was boiled down ; and white salt of good taste was produced. One shoo of water, they say, yielded 12 inommc (3^ lb.), of salt, or about 2J per cent., somewhat less than sea water ; and for seven shoo (of 400 inommc each), or nearly a peck and a half of salt thirty cubic foot (half a tana) of wood were burned, worth now 62J sen ; making the salt cost for fuel alone about nine cents a shoo, or nearly 2J cents a pound. Whereas on the sea shore of Akita, where ib is made, the salt costs less than one cent a shoo. Of course, then, there can be no profit in making salt at Ooshio. The yearly product used to be about 800 piculs, and was made, in the five last months of the year. They told us that at Atsushio, four leagues southwesterly from Ooshio, and two from Kitakata there were about three springs, too hot to bear the hand in them, likewise red from iron rust, and yielding seven momme of salt to one shoo of water (about 1^ per cent. in weight.) Then we went from Shiogawa through the alluvial plain a couple of leagues westerly to Bangc ; and began there the ascent north-westward of the hills that separate the main valley of Aidzu from northern Eehigo. On crossing the first low ridge (perhaps a thousand feet above the sea) and descending to Funato (a couple of leagues) we met with exposures of soft greenish-gray sandrock, sometimes weathered brown, apparently of.like recent age with very similar rocks of the Eehigo oil regions. Along the river at Funato and Katakado opposite, which drains all western Aidzu we found the pebbles apparently ex- clusively of Kamoikotan rocks, some of black slate and some of gray syenite. On the hill beyond we passed exposures again of the light gray or brown very soft sand rock, sometimes with level dip, sometimes beyond Tabane- inatsu dipping as much as fifty degrees easterly or thirly degrees, north-westerly. Just short of the hamlet of 81 Karusawa (about four leagues from Bange) there were some pebbles in the rock, among others some bean size, rounded ones of obsidian containing small glassy feldspar crystals; and about a hundred yards beyond Karusawa, Mr. Adachi found some imperfect fossil shells in dark brown shales among the soft sand rock beds. For a league or so beyond that, past Shitatani, there were many exposures of a soft, somewhat fine grained, pale, but rather bright, green sandrock, weathering red on cliffs, probably of like age. Thence onward to the Kuril inn, pass (about seven leagues from Bange) exposures were fewer, and were of greenish gray very soft sand rock like that seen before. At the pass (perhaps 1,000 feet above the sea) there were exposures of crumbling granite with a strike of north 10 east and a dip of 85 easterly ; and they continued some hundreds of yards on the further slope with nearly ver- tical westerly dips. Then light, bright green soft sand rock recurred (near Hoosaka) with a strike of north 35 east and a northwesterly dip of 45 ; and a little further on with level dips ; and with numerous exposures as far as to the Echigo boundary line on the Torii pass (also perhaps 1,000 feet above the sea). Thence going over the Fukutori pass (perhaps 1,250 feet above the sea at the end of Sakoozan, the mountain on our right, we went down to Tsugawa on the Aga River the outlet of the Inawashiro Lake, passing in our descent many exposures of red crumbling granite, that contained dark red feldspar, white feldspar, quartz and black mica without hornblende. In it there were, at one place at least, rounded pebbles of fist size of dark green and dark red quartzite. There were by the road side also many blocks of a gray granite with white feldspar, quartz and black mica. Shortly before reaching Tsugawa we found at the ferry of the Tokonomi River, a considerable stream from the southwest, only pebbles of Kamoikotan rocks, gray granite, black slate, and brown sand. I 32 At Tsugawa they told us about some of the mines in the neighborhood. At Knsakura in Kanoso village, three leagues to the northeast are the principal mines of all Aidzn (for this part of Echigo was formerly under the Prince of Aidzu); and are said to yield $30,000 in value of copper yearly. There is perhaps only one vein, though there are 19 mines. The width of the ore in the vein is commonly about a quarter of a foot, but widens in one place to about three feet. A specimen of the ore shown was about two thirds copper pyrites and one third iron pyrites, covered with rust ; and no gangne was visible except traces of quartz. They were expecting soon to finish a new, low drainage level, called the Oogiri, and were working on it in two hour shifts. The whole number of workmen employed at the mines, including charcoal burners, is 500. [Fuller information gathered by Messrs. Kuwada and Nishiyama will be given in a report lo bo- appended hereto.] At Kujiuro Hadate, in Yazawa village, two leagues west from Tsugawa, there is a silver mine, worked since 1875 ; and said to yield from sixty to eighty mom me of silver to three kamme of ore (two or three tenths of one per cent.) From Tsugawa we went down the river by boat nine leagues (as it was called) to Kasujima, just below Bunda of our journeys of the two preceding years. The river for the upper half of the way ran in a very crooked, rapid course among high, rocky hills and mountains ; and the rocks were all of the Kamoikotan Series. They worn chiefly gray or red and brown, probably granitic, partly crumbling ; but about a league below Tsugawa there were exposures oT gray and white limestone. About a mile, however, north of Kiyoogawa, a village on the right bank a few hundred yards below Tsugawa, there are two coal places visited later in tlio season by Messrs. Knwada and 38 Nishiyama. The places are a quarter of a mile apart ; and the coal appears to be but one bed ; and is only about a quarter of a foot thick, unworkable of course. About a league distant there is said to be another like exposure of coal, perhaps the same bed. The coal is black and shin- ing , and undoubtedly of like age with that of Akadani only a few leagues distant to the north, and, though oc- curring in small basins in Kamoikotan rocks, is probably a part of the neighboring oil bearing formation. Just after coining out of the mountains into the great Echigo alluvial plain we passed a small village called Kusoodzu, where Messrs. Kuwadu and Nishiyama visited a spot that has a little -smell of oil in the gravel ; but it is evidently nothing of importance. From Kasujiina it was but a league or so to Suibara, and thence by the same road as in former years we went northward to the little oil field of Kurokawa ; where Messrs. Kuwada and Nishiyama were surveying, and where we spent a couple of days together in office work on the geology of their map. But as the rainy weather had already delayed us beyond the first of July when we had hoped- to complete our accounts for the preceding fiscal year, we hastened southward again, by roads we had already travelled two three times, through Niitsu (where we passed a night with Messrs. luaguki and S. Maeda near their survey) to Kusoodzu and Dooyama in the Idzumozaki. region. There the assistants all joined us, and after the accounts were completed, I spent about three weeks in working out so far as possible the geology of the maps with their aid ; and gave them instructions in regard to their surveying for the rest of the season. Then in the middle of August Mr. Adachi and I resumed our journey and travelled rapidly south westard mainly over roads already traversed but partly by sea, through southern Echigo, Etchiu, Kaga and Echizen to Imajoo, near the northern line of Wakasa. 34 From Imajoo we went southwesterly seven leagues to Tsuruga, the well sheltered, large harbour (with a sandy bottom) on the north-west sea shore over against Lake Biwa ; and on the way saw exposures of Kamoikotan rocks only ; the first third of the way black slate and brown or gray weathered shales ; then for some hundreds of yards gray syenite, weathering brown, and crumbling to a brown sand, near a mountain pass about 1,900 foot above the sea. Thence descending to Tsuruga there were very few rock exposures, but two or three of dark gray shales and black slates. I did not get many good dips ; but suppose the slate and shales to overlie the syenite on either side of the ridge. On the way we were. given a couple of egg size pieces of very hard, compact, pure looking magnetite, parts of rounded and polished pebbles that had been found by a charcoal burner in digging for a place for a charcoal kiln in the mountain about a league east of Shimboo (a village about midway on our road) and over a league westerly from Itatori, a village on the road of the preceding year between Imajoo and Nakanokawachi ; niuHu the lands of Itatori. On the eastern shore of Tsuruga harbor some hundreds of yards north of the town there are gray expo- sures of Kamoikotan limestone, that is burnt for lime. On the west of the harbor there were brown earthy ex- posures, as if from Kamoikotan shales. From Tsuruga we went seven leagues south westward to Mikata, in Wakasa, through a moderately rough country, mostly pretty low, with some large alluvial flats, and with the sea near by on our right and hills perhaps 800 feet high near our left. There were only few rock exposures, but about midway there were some of dark brown and dark gray shales some- times with pebbles, and of black slate, and grayish brown quartzite all belonging to the Kamoikotan group. Here 35 and there elsewhere there were exposures of brown earth apparently likewise on the outcrop of Karaoikotan shales. At Mikata they told us about the mica that was gathered formerly on the hill a quarter of a mile east of village. It was found in the loose earth and was of a silvery or golden color in spangles an eighth or a sixteenth of an inch broad. In the rock there was a vein of mica, but it was bb\ck. The mica was separated from the earth by a common grain-fanning machine ; and was used for ornamenting wall paper. The working of the place was begun thirty years or more ago, and was profitable under the daimiate ; but of late years became gradually less so, until it was abandoned a couple of years ago after heavy losses. From Mikata we went seven leagues first southerly then westerly, to Obama on the sea shore again ; passing through a country much like that of the day before, and seeing but few rock exposures. Those few were chiefly about midway and near Obama ; and were still all of Kamoikotan rocks, dark brown quartzite, brown and reddish brown hard shales and gray quartzite ; and there were some exposures of the brown earth that the shales form in decomposing. At Oniu, a league and a half short of Obama, they are skilled in cutting small ornaments out of carnelian and chalcedony that they import from Tonauiigoori in Etchiu. They say that limestone is worked near Oniu, at Kooya village and Konotani in Nigoridani. From Obama about four leagues westerly look us through a like country of low hills and in great part along the sea shore to Hougoo ; and on the way we saw many exposures of the Kamoikotan hard shales, brown, dark brown, greenish gray, gray and bright red, and a few of gray quartzite weathering brown, and many of the brown earth that results from the decomposition of the shales. 36 At Hongoo they told us of the Nojiri copper mines, about two miles to the south-west. The ore vein or veins was called eight fathoms in width (perhaps length was meant), but the ore was said to be very little. The ore was yellow (copper pyrites), but partly black (probably oxide of copper). The mines, anciently worked for a long time, were abandoned for about a hundred years, until 1831, when they were taken .up again and worked for about ten years and abandoned again as not paying. In February, 1878, the farmers began a little once more to try to work them, but had not fairly got under weigh when we passed ; and an Oosaka man has a mining lease adjoining, but is not work- ing it now. It is an instance of the way in which the hopefulness of men lead them again and again to take up unprofitable old mines. Charcoal for smelting costs three or four cents a kamme (8 Ibs.) ; but common charcoal only about two cents. The mine water was complained of as killing the rice growing in the fields. About a mile southwest of Hongoo some copper furnaces were at work smelting old slag, which was said to yield seven or eight per cent, of copper, and sometimes ten. From Hongoo to Takaharna, on the sea shore it was two leagues westerly, over the same lo\v hilly country ; and there were like exposures again of the Kamoikotan shales and quartzite and of the brown earth far and near on the hill sides. The next six leagues westerly as far as Maedzuru, in Tango, were of the same character too ; and still the same for three leagues beyond that north- westerly, as far as Ynra, on the sea shore. At Maedzuru they showed us close to the Keirenji temple some small copper mines that were begun in the summer of 1875 and abandoned the next year. There were two adits called fifteen fathoms and six fathoms long ; and there were said to be two more, high above on 37 the hill, all perhaps on the same vein. There is no ore visible now at the drift, but some from the old workings, was shown ; and that from the lower adits proved to be mainly white iron pyrites (mareasite) with little more than traces of copper pyrites, though in one piece of the ore there was a mass of copper pyrites as large as a bean. Such very poor ore is said to have been 0.8 foot wide at the end of the longer drift. The ore shown from the upper holes was an impure looking brown hematite dark and blackish, said to fill the whole width of a wide exposure of rock and to have many spots of what would appear to be iron pyrites. The country rock is the Kamoikotan hard shales, weathered dark brown. The vein seems to have a strike of south 60 west and a dip of about 70 southeasterly. The vein is clearly quite unworkable. From Yura I went by boat along the sea shore a league and a half eastward to the Kanazaki copper mines at the end of a wild, rocky promontory in Shirasugi village. The country rock is a very hard blackish Kamoikotan quartzite. The vein or rather two veins or layers are only one-fifth of a foot in width each, separated by about a foot of irregular stone, and appear not to be one-tenth made up of copper pyrites, which is merely sprinkled through mareasite. There is also a parallel vein (or probably a layer of the same vein) of raarcasite called six feet thick, about five feet southeasterly from the copper pyrites ; and in the quartz of the five feet there is also some mareasite. The vein is vertical, and has a strike of about south 45 west. The ore was first dug a little under the daimiate, about 1865 ; but the actual mining was done wholly in 1877 ; and then there were only about ten miners. There are three adits about 25 fathoms long, all connected under ground. About 50,000 Ibs. (6,000 kamnie) of ore in all were obtained. In 1878, it was 38 roasted once, about 1,500 kammc at a time, for seven days, kindling, at the outset with 50 kamme of wood. The roasted ore was leached ; the copper precipitated by old iron (hoes and the like), that costs ten cents the kanimc ; and the liquor was afterwards boiled down in iron pots, (sometimes lined with lime), and green vitriol crystals were formed. For the boiling 50 kamme of wood were burned for one picul of green vitriol, or about three to one in weight ; but wood costs only from three to four cents for ten kamme. Charcoal costs ten cents for ten kamme. About 80 piculs of green vitriol were made, worth two dollars a picnl at Kiyooto ; and costing a quarter of dollar a picul for carriage by sea to Oosaka or thrice that by land. Of the precipitated copper about, 30 kamme were made, or one twentieth of one per cent, of the ore ; and it was worth a dollar a kamme at Oosaka. It is very plain that such thin veins of such poor copper ore in such hard rock cannot be worked profitably ; and that for the green vitriol, even the cost of fuel, cheap as it is, (not counting that of mining) is as much as the value of the vitriol nt the work?* We were shown there a specimen of ore from the Nobara lead mines, three leagues distant to the northwest, worked about twenty years ago, and abandoned after three years trial. The ore shown contained a little galena and still far less copper pyrites sprinkled through dark brown zinc blende. Only lead was made (hero. The Kanazaki mines are at the outlet of a small bay or a harbor that extends to Maedzuru with a depth, it is said, of twelve or thirteen biro of five feet each, with a mud bottom or mud and sand. It is said that most of the harbors along here have sandy bottoms ; but that the one at Miyadzu has a mud bottom and is still deeper than that of Maedzuru. From Yura we went by land to Miyadzu (three lea- 39 gues) over a very hilly road. The rocks were almost wholly a crumbling gray, or light granite, in great part very soft but with many harder layers showing the dip clearly in very large bare exposures over the hillsides- Where the rock was unexposed the brown granitic sand in the road betrayed its presence everywhere. The strike was north 60 east, and the dip was nearly or quite verti- cal ; sometimes eighty degrees one way or the other, as if the ridge just northwest of Yura were of anticlinal structure, with the shales therefore overlying the granite. Somewhat less than half way, there was an example of the hard rich brown shales, about six feet thick and ex- posed for a. length of about 20 feet, imbedded conformably in the light brown granite, pointing very markedly to the sedimentary origin of the granite too. The very clear, regular and rather thin bedding of the granite just as seen the year before very strikingly in Miuo also tends to show the same thing. The broken character of the out- line of the seashore from Tsuruga to Miyadzu, with many small bays and promontories, so unlike the coast for a long distance on either side, and indeed generally throughout the greater part of Japan, is very noticeable ; and I take it to be due to the presence of the Kamoikotan shales and crumbling granite, in general easily worn away but with many harder portions between. The whole space is in the main a shallow indentation or a bay. As the waves of the sea alone would not so eat into the coast, the effect was probably produced sub- aerially at some former time of greater elevation of the land above sea level. The headlands and hills, and the bays and valleys trend in general northeast and south- west, in accordance with the strike of the rocks. At Miyadzu they showed us (as they had also done at the Kanazaki mines) small fragments of dark gray or brownish hard shale with imperfect fossil leaves like 40 those of a conifer, somewhat like a yew for example ; and one small piece of light gray hard shale with very imperfect fossil net veined leaves. They are picked up it is said on the sea shore near Miyadzn at a place called Hioki, near the long narrow spit with pine trees celebrat- ed as the main feature of one of the three most famous landscape views of Japan and called the Heavenly Ladder (Ama no Hashidate), because from the neigh- boring mountain pass the sea is prettily seen between the tree trunks as if between the rounds of a ladder. The stones with fossils have perhaps been brought down by a river from a little distance in the interior or many have come from rocks concealed just beneath the sea ; and are probably of somewhat similar age with the Toshibets Group. They are called tenkiyoo shibaishi ; and are said to be sold sometimes as curiosities at the tea house of the mountain pass. From Miyadzu however twelve leagues and a half westward to Toyooka, in Tajinia, through a country of moderately high hills, we saw no signs of any such recent rocks, but found numerous exposures of crumbling light brown, sometimes reddish gray granite, containing a great deal of black_ mica and very little, if any, hornblende. There were also many exposures of the light brown sand into which the rock crumbles. About half way, at the pass about 400 feet high between Masudome and Nonaka, there was a case where a layer about a foot thick ot the reddish gray crumbling granite was enclosed between two beds of brown shales, in all an exposure of some ten feet in thickness. The strike there had changed to nearly east and west, nnd the dip was 70 north 5 east. A few hundred yards short of that place the crumbling brown granite appeared partly to pass into a fine pebble rock. About three quarters of the way, just beyond Kumihama there were a few exposures of Kamoikotan hard brown 41 shales near brown granitic exposures on either side though not visibly in contact with them. Toyooka is on a pretty large river some three or four leagues above its month. We turned southward up the valley, and went fourteen leagues to the Ikuno mines in the very southernmost corner of the province. At first we were in an alluvial plain of moderate width, and saw no rocks ; but on a hillside near Midznnoo beyond Sano and perhaps a league and a half from Toyooka we saw a few exposures of a Kamoikotan brown pudding rock containing pebbles, mostly of egg size or less but some of them up to half a foot or a foot in diameter, of very hard greenish gray quartz porphyry, but none of syenite nor black slate ; in a matrix of brown nietamorphic grit. A couple of leagues further on, beyond Ebara, there were exposures of reddish and greenish gray serpentine very impure with calcite that permeates its mass and forms here and there small white grains and crystals ; together with also some very minute yellow grains of pyrites. Half a league further on, near Ocla there were a couple of exposures of hard brown and greenish Kamoi- kotan shales ; and similar exposures occurred here and there for a two or three leagues to Yabu. Then there were several exposures of light gray, and light brown, hard quartz porphyry probably, and on the neighboring hillsides numerous large exposures of brown crumbling granitic (or porphyritic) sand. From Nishibirata (two or three leagues further on) there were a number more of exposures of porphyry, that continued here and there with the brown crumbling form of probably the same rock for three or four leagues. Then from Yamaguchi the remain- ing league and a half to Ikuno town there were several exposures of very hard oligoclase quartz porphyry with minute grains of magnetite. Haifa mile shortof Ikuuo we crossed the dividing ridge between the Japan Sea and the 42 Pacific Ocean, by a pass some 1,150 feet above tbe sea and some fifty feet above the town and furnaces. From the town of Ikuno to the furnaces and silver mines it is about half a mile eastward, up the valley ; and on the road just below the mines there is exposed a green oligoclase quartz porphyry, containing chlorite and minute cubes of pyrites but no visible quartz grains ; and it is said to be the same as the country rock of the silver veins. The chlorite appears to have been altered from hornblende, though the form is generally a little indistinct. The oligoclase crystals are of the same color as the matrix. The whole rock has perhaps been somewhat altered by the infiltration of magnesian waters, just as the neighboring serpentines have probably been to a still greater degree. For half a league easterly up the narrow valley to the Kanagase copper mines there are exposures of similar rocks ; and at those mines there is like porphyry but much more visibly quartzose. In the mines there is also much dark gray serpentine that is very calcitic, partly invisibly so but partly in thin white seams ; and there is a reddish and greenish dark gray impure serpentine containing quartz grains and probably invisible quartz, and thin white seams and small grains of calcite, apparently an intermediate stage in the transition from quartz porphyry to serpentine. It is possible that the magnesian waters that effected the the change rose from below through the fissures that are now filled by the veins ; and that, as the veins are most numerous at Kanagase, the change there has consequently been more complete than at the silver mines ; but perhaps an original difference in the composition of the rocks was favorable to the change. At Ilirokn, a spot a league and a half northeasterly from the furnaces, gray steatite is is said to be found in a bed nine or ten feet thick. At the silver mines, within a mile in length and a third of mile in breadth, from the mountain Kiseizan on 43 the west through Taseizau and Teiijoozan to Seetokuzan on the east, there are three principal veins : the Tasei (said to be from three feet up to 20 feet in width or even more and to average ten feet) and the Kiusei (some seven feet wide), both running about west northweast and east- southeast. and long ago pretty much worked out above water level ; and a little further east the Kikusei, (about ten feet wide), more nearly northwest and southeast in its course, and hitherto not much worked and chiefly known on tho surface. There are, it is said, many other small and poor veins of unknown number. The Tasei vein dips, for example, at the main shaft 60 north 20 west. The ore is black sulphuret of silver (stephanite), sprinkled through white quartz gangue. There is also sometimes copper pyrites and iron pyrites. There is with the silver about double its value in gold ; so that really these are gold mines rather than silver ones ; though the gold is said to have been neglected formerly. The mines according to tradition are 1,200 years old, but have been worked especially since the time of Taikoo, llirec hundred years ago, and were still flourishing a hundred years ago. But gradually the ore above water level became exhausted, and the mines were one after another abandoned. About ten years ago, the government took them up, and has since been working them. The principal workings have been in the Tasei vein on a shoot or deposit of ore that appears to be on the whole about circular in shape in the plane of the vein. It had at water level about its greatest horizontal length, 600 feet ; at the next level (131 feet lower) it was 450 feet long ; at the third level (131 feet still lower) its length at the time of our visit was not yet known, but appeared to be much less, and so far only about thirty feet of "good ore " (fourth class ; that is, yielding about 5^ hundredths of one per cent, iu silver and 1^- huudredths of one per ceiit. in gold) had been found ; and it was feared fcliat on the fourth level (which had not yet reached the shoot) there would be no ore to speak of. The other shoots and veins had not yet been found to be of much importance. The mines are worked in foreign style under the guidance of Europeans ; and the narrow irregular galleries of old times are no longer driven, but wide and high ones with iron rail tracks. The mines are of course pumped, bat the amount of water seems to be small. The ore dressing works and furnaces arc close by the silver mines ; and are conveniently arranged in fine large brick buildings. There are 75 wet stamps and 25 dry ones, of 5 cwt, each ; 28 shaking tables (18 fine and 10 coarse) ; 4 roasting furnaces each 75 feet long by 10 feet wide, with twelve doors. and two fires ; and there are 32 Freiberg amalgamation revoh'iug barrels. There are several turbine water wheels and a number of steam engines. The works including those of the mines, here and at Kanagase, are said to have cost over a million dollars. At the Kanagase copper mines there is a* steam pump- ing engine inside the mines but no furnaces or other cost- ly works. But there has been a good deal of exploratory mining done in the last half dozen years with the result that the old miners are now known to have pretty thoroughly worked out the ore down to water level ; and now explorations have been begun 160 feet lower down. The veins are numerous. The ore is chiefly copper pyrites containing a little silver ; and there is a little galena ; but there is not yet any yield of ore to speak of. The product of the gold and silver works for the year ending 30 June, 1878, was about $234,000 (subtracting the cost of separating the two metals afterwards at Oosaka, about $7,000) ; and the running expenses (with- out interest or amortisation) were about $180,000. The ore mined was about six-sevenths of the amount smelted, the other seventh having been left over from the preced- ing year. All but about a seventieth of the ore is of the fourth class ; and the ore smelted in the first half of 1878, yielded ou the average about $56 to the ton, of which about $36.50 were gold and $19.50 silver ; and $1.60 the cost of separating the two metals. The whole num- ber of men employed (exclusive of the Kanagase mines) is about 965, including about forty officials, 321 men at the furnaces, and 604 at the mines. The miners are paid from $20 to $60, averaging $40, for a length of ten feet along the vein by a width of say ten feet and a height of six feet, including the powder which is nearly one-fourth of the whole expense ; and each miner earns about $6.50 a month. Fuel costs : wood (matsu), for the roasting furnaces, $3.50 a cubic fathom ; coal (from Miikc) for the steam engines, about $5.00 a ton, delivered at the furnaces (it was said). The carriage of coal from the shore of the Inland Sea at Shikama to the mines, twelve leagues, used to cost $17 a ton ; but costs now only two dollars, over the excellent new road that has been built there a line illustration of the immense saving that would be effected all over the country by the building of good roads. From Ikuuo we went back by the Toyooka road again ; but at the village of Namba, about nine leagues -from Ik uno, we turned westward through Yooka, about a quarter of xi league distant up the valley of the Yae River. In less than a league beyond there were ex- posures of brown and gray shales between the villages of Konigi and Takayanagi, with dips of 25 and 75, both north 30 west, forming a basin with one dip reversed. Just beyond the town of Yagi (a league and a half from Yooka) there were exposures of dark green and dark brown calcitic serpentine, similar to that of the Toyooka 46 road. About a league further on near tbe small village of Makuri there were exposures of a pudclingstone weathered dark brown with pebbles up to egg size, and dark green and blackish shales weathering brown. Close beyond began exposures of dark green serpentine weather- ing light gray ; and it was exposed in many places, to half a league past Sekinomiya (three leagues from Yooka), where began more sleeply the ascent north-westward of the now narrow valley to a high mountain pass. The serpentine is well known throughout the region and is used for very handsome tombstones. It is called Onjakuishi because small pieces of it are heated in the fire and carried by old men in the bosom for warmth. Then began exposures of a dark green pebble rock with pebbles up to egg size of black slate, granite, gray quartzite and green feldspar, but none of serpentine ; and like exposures were seen for about a quarter of a league. Then for another quarter of a league there were exposures of a very hard, gray (brown weathering) Kamoikotan grit, at first coarse but further on finer, that contained imperfect fossil shells, the only fossils that I have met with in that rock, but they were unfortunately extremely difficult to cut out. They are probably quite too imperfect for determination. Some of them are portions of a long (up to a third of a foot) slightly tapering slightly curved univalve somewhat of the shape of the toxoceras, but perhaps a cyrloceras or allied to the orthoccras though I cannot detect iho siphuncle ; and there is also at least one very imperfect bivalve, possibly an area. A few score yards furl her on there was exposed a pebble rock with bean size pebbles of quartzite. Then a few yards beyond, there began exposures of black slate, which continued here and there across I he Yae Valley Pass, close by, (about 1,700 feet above the sea) and northward to near Muraoka, (three leagues and a half from Sekinomiya), in many places 47 weathering brown and gray or associated with dark brown shales. In one place about five feet of them over- lay a decomposing quartz porphyry and underlay about five feet of a blackish nodular ferruginous limestone. Then there was an exposure of a pea pebble rock weathered brown, lying with a gentle south-south-easterly dip between blackish slate above and below. The true dips generally from Yooka to Muraoka are probably south- south-easterly and north-north-westerly ; but there are cleavages that mislead. It is said that at Nakaze near Sekinomiya there is an old abandoned copper mine that the government thinks of re-opening ; and one of the Ikuno foreigners had gone to look at the place a short time before we came along. Also at a league south-east ofTakai,a small village we passed half a league south of Muraoka, there are said to be very old abandoned gold mines. Likewise at Ushirodani, in Ootani village, a league and a half south-westerly from Muraoka there is said to be a gold mine that was worked about five months in the spring and summer of 1877 ; and some poor looking specimens of its unwashed and washed ore were shown us, without any visible gold. On our road northerly from Muraoka the black slates occurred again with gentle south-south-easterly dips ; and within half a mile or so, among them and conformably underlying one exposure of them with a dip about level there was an exposure of some seven feet in thickness of very hard gray fine pebble rock or coarse grit slightly calcareous, which contained fragments of bivalve and other fossils like those seen in the upper part of the Yae valley ; but it was impossible of get any of them out. Then for a couple of hundred yards there were more exposures of black slate with gentle south-south-easterly dips ; followed by one (with like dip) of about six feet of green sand rock with a few bean size pebbles of black slate and of whitish 48 quartz underlying about twenty feet of egg size pebble rock. Thence north-westward across the Maruni Pass (some 1,100 feet above the sea) and the Haruki Pass, (some 1,700 feet above the sea) to Yum lira (four leagues and a half from MuraokaJ there were here and there exposures of the same gray (or light brown weathered) Kamoikotan pebble rock with pebbles up to fist size, and even head size, and of greenish brown weathered hard sand rock, and -sometimes brown shaly sand rock, and a little of gray shales. At the village of Otaosa, a mile or so short of Ynmura, in brown weathered, hard sand rock there were fossils again like those already mentioned. At Yumura there are two hot springs ; one close by the bath house, covered up, but with a temperature of 91 at the outlet,, a couple of feet distant, and a yield of perhaps fifty gallons a minute. According to an analysis said to have been made by some foreigner at Kiyooto, about 1868, the water would appear to contain four fifths of one per cent, of mineral substances, of which nearly half was carbonate of lime, about one third was chloride of sodium, about one thirteenth was chloride of magne- sium, and the rest showed traces of silica, alumina and magnesia. The other spring, at a level some ten feet lower, issues from the rock by the river side within a space of some ten feet in diameter and has a temperature of 95 with gas and with a yield of perhaps five cubic feet (37-J gallons) a second. The hot water is used by tlio villagers for cooking, for steeping hemp and the like ; ami occasionally one of them unfortunately falls in and is scalded to death, as happened about the time of our visit. The rock is a brown weathered hard quartz! to, apparently of the Kamoikotan series, broken up into small fragments by cross seams, in some parts looking like a head size pebble rock. The dip was 45 north-west. There are however volcanic rocks at no great distance. 49 for we were shown a small nut size bit of obsidian, that was said to come from a mass six feet long at Knneo village, about a league to Ibe south-west. They showed us also a specimen of a bright pink, or flesh red, soft fuller's earth, and one of greenish gray color, from a place called luago in Yumura. It is said to be used as soap by the villagers. From Yumura a couple of miles northerly to Takeda there were still exposures of coarse pebble rock and of yellowish brown hard shaly sand rock ; but. then the road turned westerly and there were exposures of brown crumbling granite and of reddish gray granite, to the Kamoo Pass, the boundary between Tajima and Inaba (some 1,200 feet high). Just beyond the pass there were bits of black slate again. Thence northerly a couple of leagues to Iwai there were a few exposures of greenish gray (brown weal boring) shaly looking rock. At about half a league from Kamoo village and a league from Iwai to the left of our road it is said there is an old silver mine, that is supposed to have been worked three hundred years ago, but was long abandoned. It was taken up again about 186.5, and worked less than a year and abandoned again, "because they did not get to the rich part of the vein ;" but (he ore yielded some silver. On the road from Kamoo to the silver mine there was a copper mine worked for about three years, about 1865 ; but it was abandoned, probably because it did not pay. At Nagataui, nearly a league from Iwai towards the sea coast of Tajima, it is said there are fossil leaves resem- bling grass in a very hard black stone, too fine-grained or free from grain to serve for inkstones and probably quart- zite, and some specimens were sent to the Home Depart- ment in 1877. At. Iwai (five leagues from Ynmura) there are seven hot springs within a space of some fifteen yards in length. 50 Their names and temperatures are the following : Kalm and Ichi or Goten (two separate baths over one spring) 57 ; Nakai, 47 ; Kojoroo, 47 ; Miyada Yachiroo, 47; Maeda Tokne, 46; Itoo Esaburoo, 46; Yaraada Jinzoo, 451. The quantity yielded by them is not visible in any case. The Kabu and the Yamada springs have much gas in large bubbles ; the Itoo has none. In other respects the water of them all would seem to be of the same quality, and not to be sulphurous, and to leave little or no deposit. From Iwai a couple of leagues north-westerly to Hoso- kawa on the sea shore there wore many exposures of brown crumbling granite and granitic sand ; with one of greenish gray and greenish brown pebble rock just short of Hosokawa, and, close by, one of blackish brown shales between light brown shales. From Hosokawa the road ran along the soft sandy sea beach for about a league west- ward passing a rocky island a short distance off, and with sand covered hills of a hand red feet or more in height just inland ; one of them however with gray cliffs. Then the road turned south-westward away from the sea, and crossing the sand hill, past an exposure of brown crum- bling granite, at length in half a league reached firm ground near the village of Hamasaka. Thence another league southerly with low hills and exposures here and there of brown crumbling granite on our left and a small river and a rather wide alluvial plain on our right brought us to the large town of Tottori. The country all the way from Ikuno to Hosokawa had been very mountainous. At Tottori we were shown some mineral specimens, but none of any value. There was some brown impure look- ing lignite that came from Dooji, Yarnada and Imodani in Sliimoaji village, Takakusagoori. There was also some so called copper ore, that was iron pyrites with mere traces of copper pyrites ; and some that had only small cubical 51 crystals of iron pyrites. A large quartz crystal was shown, nine tenths of a foot in thickness, but full of flaws ; and it came from Hinogoori in Hooki, probably from granite, as is the case with the Kai crystals. From Tottori we went westerly a couple of leagues through the plain past a pretty largo lake and over some sand hills to the sea beach at the village of Uchiumi, opposite a small island a few hundred yards off with vertical rocky sides, no doubt of the same volcanic rock of which exposures began here to occur along the road. It was a New Volcanic tufa pebble rock with pebbles of head size, or sometimes up to three feet in diameter, of an Old Volcanic, andesite, containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), decomposing augite and magnetite in a grayish, sometimes brownish, green decomposing matrix. Numerous exposures of the same rock with the pebbles sometimes with a gray or reddish gray matrix and sometimes imbedded in abundant level bedded, very soft gray tufa sand rock (sometimes a, scarcely coherent volcanic ash), were seen on the road all the way west to near Yonago in Hooki (23 leagues from Tottori) ; and came, of course, from the fine conical extinct volcano Daisen on our left. At first there were here and there also a few exposures of brown, hard, apparently Kamoikotan, shales or of bright brown quartz porphyry, both with south-easterly dips ; and at the village of Ham am lira there was one of gray crumbling granitic rock ; and further on again a few of red and brown shales with north-westerly dip; but after the first half dozen leagues from Tottori such exposures were scarcely to be seen at all, The andesite pebbles, though once, near S u warn ura, with a fresh and firm, reddish and greenish matrix (containing there a dark brown mica besides the oligoclase and augite), were generally soft and partially decomposed, and in decomposing produced a slippery clay that was very noticeable in the hilly road in wet weather. The road passed along the sea coast sometimes over a beach of loose sand, sometimes crossing low hills, sometimes going a little inland or behind the sand hil- locks near the shore. Near Yonago, and from it three leagues westerly over low hills around the south-eastern end of the large bay called Nakaumi to Yasugi ift Idzumo there were numerous exposures of somewhat crumbling gray and light brown ollgoclase quartz porphyry, containing decomposing gray triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase) crystals and a little dark brown mica. From Yasugi I made an excursion a couple of leagues southward to the town of Mori and back. The road lay along the bank of a broad shallow river in an alluvial flat, wide at first but growing narrower upstream to Mori, nearly iu the edge of the mountains, At one or two points where the road touched the hills, there were exposures of rock similar to those seen near Yonago and Yasugi* Mr* Adachi, who is a native of Mori, says that the rocks further upstream are a crumbling granite and a hard greenish gray rock that would appear to bo quartz porphyry. The river bed below Mori shows much of the reddish granitic sand. Mr. Adachi went by a short road from Yonago across the hills to Mori, and passed one of two recent trial holes dug for so called copper ore at Shinuto in Okanoshoo village, about two leagues from Yonago. The ore would seem to occur in the quartz porphyry and to be chiefly iron pyrites, though a little copper pyrites is said to have been found. From Yasugi we went half a dozen leagues north- westerly by a nearly level road near the shore of the Nakaumi on our right and with hills on our left that become high mountains at a short distance. Within a league of Yasugi we passed, near the village of Arashima, 58 exposures and quarries of a soft, light gray and brown mottled tufa, sometimes light gray, mottled with white. The rock, especially in the light gray portions, looks somewhat like decomposing pumice, almost clay like, and contains minute octahedral crystals of iron pyrites, and here and there traces of glassy feldspar. The rock i so soft as to be easily cut, even with the fingernail ; and is found a durable stone under water, but not able to bear the frost well. Onward for a short distance from. Shimoitoo, a couple of leagues from Yasngi there were exposures of soft greenish gray shaly sand rock, weather- ing brown, probably a portion of the rocks associated with the coal bed found further on and near Matsue, and most likely of about the same age as the Echigo coal and oil bearing rocks. Then, although we went past some low hills a league or two further on, we saw no more rock exposures ; and the rest of the way was through au alluvial plain, I visited the Adakae copper mines inside the edge of the mountains half a league south-westerly from Adakae village, which was on the main road a couple of leagues short of Matsue. The mines are all near together within a space of less than a mile in length ; and are owned by the following six companies. Hoomanzan (the principal mines), Ushironotani, Hidokaze (very small), Takegatawa (very small), Iwazaka (idle), Bisshookosai (idle). The mines of the Hoomauzan Company were opened in 1865, and belonged then to the Prince ; but have been worked by the company for the past five years. There are said to be fifteen veins and thirty mines ; but only one vein is now worked, with a mine 25 fathoms long. The ore is chiefly copper pyrites sprinkled through white quartz, but they say there is also some black ore (probably oxide of copper) ; and it is at the thickest place four-tenths of a foot wide, and at other points had been half a foot, but in 54 general is only two-tenths of ;i foot, or less. The country rock is a greenish gray tufa, mottled with white, so soft that it is very easily dug and is called mere mud. There are forty roasting kilns for 500 kammc of ore each ; and four smelting hearths (of which two are idle). Only blister copper (aradoo) is made. In the year ending 30 June, 1878, from 170,022 karnme (632 tons) of washed ore 25,328 kamme (94|- tons), "or 14A per cent., of crude copper were made. The copper sells for $15 a picul at the mines or $17.50 at Oozaka ; the carriage costing about $2.50. There are 120 workers employed : 51 in the mines ; 20 at the washings ; 26 at the kilns and furnaces ; and 23 others. Mining one fathom (6 feet long by 4 feet high by 3 feet wide) costs $0.75, beside 1 shoo of rice ($0.05) a day and 1 shoo of oil ($0.36) a month for each man; and about five feet in length a day are dug by four men to- gether. Wood costs $0.45 for 100 kamme ; and charcoal $3 to $3.50 for 100 kamrae. About 100,000 kamme of charcoal a year are burned. The Ushironotani mine is a couple of hundred yards down stream from the Hoomanzan. It was begun in July, 1876. It is said, there is only one mine and one vein with a dip of 70 northerly ; and that the ore is at most about 4^ tenths of a foot wide ; and there would ap- pear to be two " ore shoots," of which the western is the larger. The ore and the country rock are like those of the Hoomanzan. The mine extends about 200 feet below water level, and is pumped wilh Japanese bamboo pumps ; but there is not much water. There are 56 roasting kilns and four smelting hearths; and only blister copper is made. In the year ending 30 June, 1878, from 133,739 kamme (498^ tons), of washed ore 12,892 kamme (44 tons), or about 9A per cent., of copper were made. There are 210 workers employed: 135 at the mines ; and 75 at the furnaces and washings. It is evident that the Hoomanzan 55 and the Ushirouotani mines are worked with a profit on account of the softness of the country rock in spite of the narrowness of the veins ; but there is a great lack of surveying, mapping and labour saving expedients that would be very desirable and probably increase the profits. At the Hoomanzan they showed me a flnt bit of titanic iron (menaccanite) about a tenth of a foot long that came from Miinasaka, but the name of the mountain and koori was not known. I visited also the Yada coal mines in a very low hill about half a mile south of (he main rond and a league and a half short of Matsuc. They were first worked by the government in 1863, and the coal was burned by a steamer ; but at the end of eight years the steamer stopped running and the mines were abandoned. In the autumn of 1873, however, some Nagato men took up the mines and worked them for about five months ; and since that no digging has been done. The mines were two adits, the larger one thirty fathoms long ; and now both have fallen in so as to be inaccessible. According to the des- cription given on the spot there was a thickness of three feet of coal (at one mine only two feet) under a foot of soft blackish earth, which was covered by some twelve feet of greenish gray and light brown shaly soft sand rock. The coal is black and shining and not fibrous , and is said not to have fallen quickly to powder when exposed to the air in heaps for months. There is now none of it to be seen ; except small bits that have been in the weather for years. The roof is evidently too soft, and had to be prop- ped at every three feet. The coal dipped about 5 (in an- other place 15) north 15 w r est, away from the mouth of the mines into the hill, so that water accumulated inside ; and much earth was brought out (probably to make natural drainage possible), and spoiled the adjacent rice field, adding to the expense. If the thickness and quality of 56 the bed have not been exaggerated, mining might pay ; but a careful survey should first be made so as to find a place to attack the coal where an adit would drain itself. I saw too the Akasaki coal mines in the edge of Matsue itself, half a league or less north-easterly from the Prefec- ture. The very little mining that has been done took place in April, 1878. There are three small adits within a distance of about 20 yards, in a single low hill, one of ten and two of six fathoms in length ; all apparently on the same bed, which dips 20 north 5 west. At one of the drifts, the coal is visible, and measures one foot and a quarter in thickness; underlying some six feet of light gray soft shales, and overlying some six feet of soft greenish gray sand rock weathering light brown. At the other places the coal is said to be of about the same thick- ness, but is only partially exposed. The coal is black and shining, feeling rather heavy. Some of it that had been exposed to the weather for months was still black and firm. I visited likewise the Matsue pottery, near by, about half a league north of the Prefecture. It is a small pot- tery, but a few fine articles are made, in the Fnjina style ; and it is said to be 100 years old. There is one kiln (thirteen fathoms long by two fathoms wide) now used ; but there is one more disused. The clay comes from Mijiro village in Ooharagoori, six leagues to the south-west ; the same place that supplies the Fnjina potteries. In passing I visited the Fnjina potteries too, a couple of hundred yards north-westerly from the main road at the village of Fnjina, about a league westerly from Matsue. They are said to be 200 years old. There is one kiln 28 fathoms long by three fathoms wide, with 1 1 ovens ; one kiln about 10 fathoms long by two fathoms wide, with six ovens, and another rather smaller kiln ; and there are about 100 potter's wheels. There are three 57 bakings : the first is for the white biscuit ; the second is for the yellow glaze, the characteristic of the place ; and the third is for the fancy painting. The two first bakings take about two days each, and the third much less. The clay comes from Mijiro. The glaze comes from Kimatsu, in Oomori village, three leagues distant. From Matsue, at the head of the Nakaumi and at the outlet of the Shinji Lake, a league and a half westerly to Ynmtichi (lie only rock exposures were of soft greenish gray and greenish brown shaly sand rock and sandy shales ; such as were to be seen in the hills about the northern edge of Matsue ; but Kanioikotau rocks occur probably only a very short distance south of the road, near Fujina, andcarnelian and chalcedony are found in the hills there. Yumachi is in a little alluvial plain on the shore of the lake ; but southward a mile to Tamatsukuri, the road follows the bank of a small river among high hills, of Kamoikotan rocks, as I supposed from what I saw after- wards, though I was belated and passed there after dark. Mr. P. Kempermann, however, mentions in an interesting account of a " Journey through the Central Provinces of Japan," (read before the German East- Asiatic Society, in 1878, and republished in English in the Japan Weekly Mail, 14 Sept., 1878) that "at Ynmachi on the south bank of the lake he found on the foot of one of the spurs of the main range large basalt columns, and higher up andcsite." Perhaps the exposures were somewhat further west than the road we travelled. He speaks also of the oc- currence of graphite (a mineral of the Kamoikotan rocks) near Tamatsnkuri ; but none was brought to my notice. At Tamatsnkuri there are some hot springs, but they issue from greenish gray or light brown pretty hard sand rock, in places quite hard and a good whetstone, appar- ently a metamorphic, Kamoikotan rock. There are three springs within some fifty yards. One, about ten yards .-58 back from the river, has a temperature of 64 C. with a yield of perhaps fifty gallons a minute : another, at the principal hotel (Nishimura) has a temperature of 62^ C. with a like yield ; and the third at the edge of the river, has a temperature of 59 C. and a yield of perhaps 125 gallons a minute. The water seems to have extremely little mineral matter in it, and lias no taste nor smell; and forms little or no deposit, but perhaps traces of a white one, that may be salt. At Tamatsnkuri and at Yumachi chalcedony, carnelian, ng'Jile, green jasper and smoky quartz are cut into small ornaments very neatly. The stones here as elsewhere, come no doubt from Kamoikotan rocks and are found in several places near Tamatsukuri, almost wholly on the east side of the river, towards Fnjina, and inside of Fujina; but one large crystal of smoky quartz was found on the westside of the river near Tamatsnknri. Some of the ornaments are small magatama of green jasper cut and polished in imita- tion of ancient ones that are found in the ground near Tamatsukuri. The hotel landlord knows of five ancient ones that have been picked up in the village, the largest about two-tenths of a foot long. They are of prehistoric oiigin, are believed to have been made by the gods, and are therefore collected and preserved in Shintoo temples. In the temple close by, there are three jancient magatama; one is about 0.11 feet long of reddish chalcedony ; another is about 0.07 feet long of similar but rather paler material; and the third is about 0.09 feet long of dark green jasper. They are polished, but less finely so than the lapidaries there now know how to polish stones. The lapidaries remark that the carnelian and chalcedony are -equally hard, but are harder than the vitreous limpid or smoky quartz, which again are of equal hardness. T\\ey showed us some obsidian that had been brought from the island Oki, which is therefore in part at least volcanic. The stone was found too soft and brittle for ornaments, except for round beads. From Tamalsukuri we went southward eight leagues and a half among the hills and mountains to Minari, near the central ridge of the Island. The road at first did not go over very high ground, but had small passes of some 400 or 500 feet in height. Near Minari however the passes were higher, np to some 900 or even 1,100 feet abov^e the sea ; and the valley at Minari itself was about 700 feet high. Within half a mile of Tamatsukuri we came to exposures of light gray granite weathering light brown containing, besides the white, and sometimes slightly reddish, feldspar and abundant quartz and (some- times scanty) mica, a little magnetite ; and such exposures continued frequent all the rest of the way. The granite was sometimes hard, at least in parts, but generally was very crumbling ; and there was much granitic sand. At some points near Minari, there was a larger proportion of magnetite, and here and there a little magnetic sand in the road, In the region about Minari there are eight iron making places, of which however only three seem to be working, namely, at Amegawa, a league and a quarter easterly from Minari; Uiic, the same distance south-easterly from Mi- nari ; and Makibara. The rest are small or not at work and arc at Nodzuchi (two leagues easterly from Ame- gawa), formerly the most flourishing of all, but now less so ; Shikafani ; 13 ok lira ; Riunokoma ; and Yashirodani. I went from Minari to the Amegawa works ; and Mr. Adaehi to those of Une, which I also visited on the way hack. The road was still among the hills with the crum- bling Kamoikotan granite everywhere. The iron ore used at all the works is iron sand ; and is obtained : cither by cutting down the granite and break- ing it up by hand and washing it ; or the river sand is Washed; or the ore is taken from alluvial ground. The ore from such alluvium is reddish and more fnsihlc tlwn the other kinds owing no doubt to its long exposure to weathering influences ; the ore washed from the rock is next in fusibility ; and the ore separated from river sand is the least fusible, probably owing to its being protected by water from the air, or because its weathered surface has been continually worn off. The difficult fusibility is very likely due in part to the presence of titanium. Most of the ore used at Amegawa is brought on horse-back from various -places over two leagues distant ; but is washed again at the furnace and reduced to hnlf its weight. Some ore, however, is washed on the liill side close by the Amegawa furnace in the winter half of the year ; but the rock there is reckoned in general of inferior quality, though some parts are pretty good. Six men work together in one place and produce 800 to 1,000 loads, sometimes only 600 loads (of 24 kamme or l piculs each), in one season of about 180 days, or 1,080 days' work ; and that amount of ore is likewise re^- duced one-half by the final washing at the furnace. Ill one such season, it is said, the six men cut down and wash the rock throughout a length of about 30 fathoms by a width of about 5J fathoms and a height of three fathoms ; say 500 cubic fathoms for about 500 loads or 45 tons of the ore of the final washing, or about one-half of one per cent, of the weight of the rock. The only vein of magnetite known is at Hatakeyama in Oomaki village, three leagues south of Amegawa; but it is only a quarter of a foot thick and is therefore quite unworkable. The Amegawa iron works arc over 100 years old. The only furauce there, like the others of Idzumo, makes both pig iron and steel in one operation of three days ; but across the mountains in Bingo with similar furances they- make (it is said) only pig iron in an operation four days long. The furnace is essentially like the blast furnace of western countries ; but extremely low and with a very long hori- zontal section, and of extremely little durability, as it is built merely of a common yellow clay. The shape is closely like that of the Rachette furnace, a recent inven- tion of western countries ; the size, however, is small. The height is only 3.7 feet, and the width at top 3.2 feet outside or 2.4 feet inside, but the length is 9^- feet out- side. The outer sides are battering, and the inner ones still more so near the bottom, so that only half a foot in width along the middle of the bottom is flat. The vertical section crosswise differs then from that of the blast furnace in being widest at the top instead of near the middle. In the course of the operation, however, the inner sides rapidly wear away toward the bottom so that the section becomes much wider there than at first. The extreme lowness of the furnace can be accounted for by the fact that the minuteness of the particles of the ore enable them to be deoxidised in a very short descent. The great length of the furnace is made up for by a row of nineteen tweers on each side, for which there are elliptical holes 0.2 feet high and 0.7 feet above the bottom outside and 0.5 feet inside ; so that the heat is kept up throughout the whole length. The progress of the smelling can also be viewed through the holes, at the sido of the nozzles, and any obstructing slag can be poked away with a small rod inserted there ; and at each end of the furnace at the bottom there is a hole 0.4 ft. in diameter for drawing off slag and pig iron, and there likewise the smelting can be watched. At the end of the first twenty four hours that hole is closed and two other similar ones are opened on either side of it near the corners, as the side walls have already become thin. Below the bottom, which is on a level with the ground, 62 there is a layer 0.8 ft. thick of ashes of the maki, u conifer (Podocarpus maerophylla) ; and below them (hero are 4.2 ft. in depth by 3^ ft. in width and 9-J ft. in length of hot couls ; and the five feet together arc called the f uk u toko (or hearth). Below it is a depth of seven feet filled with red and black clay ; from the bottom of -which there is a horizontal drain to a neighboring hillside, The whole depth of twelve feet is walled about with hall' a foot or more in thickness of stone (granite and other kinds). The fukutoko with the parls below is perma- nent ; and at some places is not allowed to cool down for a hundred years. The furnace proper is built of wet clay in a day, and dried with a wood fire in the following night. At three o'clock the next morning the same brands from the wood lire are removed and the furnace filled with large charcoal, the iweers are adjusted, the coals kindled and the blast begun. At about five o'clock the charcoal in burning has become about 0.4 of a foot shallower than at first. Then they put on iron sand perhaps about 16 kamme (133^- Ibs or one picul), but. not a weighed quantity ; then some more charcoal until the top is made level again with the top of the furnace. When the tiro has again become about 0.4 ft. lower, another picul of iron sand and some more charcoal are put on ; and so on repeatedly. The first day and night, ore and charcoal arc charged about 33 times in 12 hours ; and the second day at about the same rale but growing quicker, so that on the third day there are 42 charges in 12 hours. Throughout the operation, slag is running out at thu end holes of the furnace, and some pig iron too, called dzuku, which, though variable, amounts to perhaps 180 kamme (l,oOO Ibs.) in all. On the fourth morning at three o'clock (that is at the end of 72 hours), after having charged in all about 3,800 kamme of charcoal and 3,600 03 kamme (30,000 Ibs.) of ore, they stop the blast (which has been continuous) and take away the nozzles. Then they break up the furnace, brush off the coals that remain on the mass of metal that has been produced, and let it cool. The mass is steel, but the outside of it is bad steel called kera ; below it there is melted pig iron, or dzuku, which on the removal of the steel mass cools and becomes solid at once. The steel mass weighs about 540 kamme (4,500 Ibs.) of which two-thirds are good steel and the rest kera. The two are separated with the hammer. The dzuku weighs about 860 kamme (3,000 Ibs.), or together with the previous 180 kamme (1,500 Ibs.) about 540 kamme (4,500 Ibs.) in all ; making the whole product then about 1,080 kamme (9,000 Ibs. or about four tons) or 30 per cent, of the ore. With a larger furnace sometimes 1,200 kamme are produced. When the metal has been cooling a couple of hours, at about six o'clock in the morning the steel mass is pulled out and then immediately the dznku. The dzuku without further cooling is thrown at once into a small pond of water close by, and is afterwards broken up with hammers. The hot sleel mass is likewise thown into water at some places, but not here ; and after cooling it is broken up into small bits. The same day that the metal masses are removed the furnace is rebuilt, so that on the fifth day the blowing recommences. In a month, then, there are seven or eight operations, except when occasionally there nre interruptions from disordered apparatus. In a year there are about seventy operations with a vacation of two months in the hottest part of summer. The dzuku and kera both go to forges in other villages; Komurij'twoleagues distant; Komaki twoleagnes; Y.'ikawa, three leagues ; Maki, three leagues ; Sumoni, two leagues), and arc converted into bar iron there, yielding about 62J per cent. The dzuku is sometimes 64 made in other villages into good cast iron by means of twice remelting. The blast is given by a pair of wooden bellows on each side of the furnace ; and they are like the bellows of an oil well, except that J.hey are in two halves, end to end, with the hinges of the top boards at the outer ends, so that the man who treads them stands in the middle and steps first on one board and then on the other. The boards are each five feet long by three wide and rise and fall at the inner end about H feet. The work is so severe that the men are relieved about once an hour, and in the twenty-four hours there are three sets of men, or six men in all. The nozzle is chiefly of bamboo about 0.15 ft. in diameter, but at the furnace end is of iron for a length of about two thirds of a foot, and at the very end with an inside diameter of 0.06 ft. The furnace and bellows, charcoal and ore bins, and resting rooms for the workmen are all in a high building about fifty feet square. Of wood about 2,000 kamme are used in the three days operation ; 1,000 kamme for drying the furnace and 1000 kamme expressly for making ashes. For the ashes maki only is used ; and it has to be burned green, otherwise (it is said) the ashes are inferior. The ashes would seem to serve as a flux ; and at the same time form the bottom of the furnace through which the metal nnd slag do not penetrate. The charcoal used is very large, some pieces two or three feet long by half a foot in diameter, but many smaller ; and it is broken up a little before putting on the fire. The coals in the fukutoko do not diminish in several years, and when the work is interrupted arc kept warm by a mound shaped charcoal fire on top covered with clay except a hole at one end before which a few sticks of wood burn slowlv. 65 One steel mass (with kera), that I saw, was of irregular shape, about nine feet long by about 3J feet wide and half a foot thick, including some cinders and ashes on top and slag below ; and the dzuku is said to be of about the same shape but much thinner. The kera surrounds the good steel on all sides. The breaking up into small pieces is done partly with hand hammers by eight men : and, in the case of the more difficult lumps, by letting fall upon each of them a mass of dzuku weigh- ing 360 kamme from a height of some ten feet. The mass is raised by means of a rude tread wheel worked by four men ; and falls between a guiding framework about 2^ feet square. The twelve men in all do the breaking up in four days, just the time of one complete furnace campaign. Besides the twelve men who break up the steel (with 48 days' labor) ; and the six men who blow the furnace (with 18 days' labor), there are two men for charging the charcoal, and two for the ore (twelve days' labor), and twelve men for building the furnace (twelve days' labor); so that there are in all ninety days' labor for each operation. The cost of labor is very low, because strongly attached old family retainers are employed. The bellows' men and steel breakers average about nine cents a day, includ- ing four cents worth of rice (one shoo). It is owing to such low wages that the works still succeed no worse. At washing the ore of the hillside near the furnace about ten cents a day are earned. Ore brought from a distance is bought at about 14 cents for a load of 24 knmine. After washing again at the furnace and reduc- tion to one half its weight, it is worth 25 cents a load (so stated, but the two bought loads to make one of the last washing would cost 28 cents) ; and the yield therefore is at least 3J cents to the cubic yard of such rock as that 66 near the furnace. Charcoal costs about 12 cents for for 10 kamme. Maid wood is worth from 21 to 3 cents for 10 kamme according to quality. The steel sells for about $5 a load of 30 kamme (or $44.80 a ton), or about $60 for the product of one operation ; but averages say $45. A like load of dzuku and of the best kera (yielding 50 or 60 per cent, of iron) brings about $2 a load ( r $17.92 a ton) both alike; or say $48 for the whole pro- duct of them in one operation. The making of bar iron fr >m dzuku and kera cosls (it is said) about $2.70 a load; luit with inferior dzuku and kera it costs more. Bar iron sells at Amegawa for $5 to $7 for 24 kamme according to quality, averaging perhaps $6 ; or say $67 a ton. Dzuku brings $3 a load (or about $27 a ton) at Matsue. The chief expenses of the 70 operations of a whole year would be : 266,000 kamme charcoal $3,192 140,000 wood, say 385 10,500 loads of ore @ 25 sen 2,625 6,300 days' labour @ 9 sen 567 Clay for furnace building say 70 $6,839 or $97.70 for each operation ; or $24.34 for each ton of product. But something should be added for the wear and tear of tools and of the breaking machine, deteriora- tion of the buildings, cost of superintendence, and interest on the capital. The whole product for the same year of 70 operations would be 281 tons (75,600 kamme) of which one third would be good steel. The value of the whole product would be at say $93 for each operation 6510 (or at $108 it would be $7560). The information is not quite precise enough to decide with certainly whether there be any profit or not, 67 The clay I visited Amegawa the furnace was not in blast ; and the operation is given as it was described to me on the spot. As such inquiries are unusual there and were unexpected and the answers had not been specially prepared, it is possible there may in some points be a little inexactness, though evidently no more than under the circumstances was unavoidable. It will therefore be well to compare the statements with those obtained at the closely similar establishment of Une, and with the obser- vations of the operation there. The Une iron works are 103 years old (since 1776); and they say that the fire has in that time never gone oul;. The furnace is 9.3 ft. by 3.3 feet, as they told me ; but by Mr. Adachi's measurement of the patterns the outside width at the top was 3.4 ft., the inside 2.7 ft., the outside width at the bottom 3.7 ft. and the inside 0.65 ft. There are twenty tweers on each side. The furnace house, bellows and other apparatus are closely like those at Amegawa ; and my short visit was at about six o'clock in the evening of the second day of the operation. Each bellows Was making about 28 strokes a minute with one- half of the bellows, or say 1-4 strokes for each pair, and the effort was very violent. For the three days eight men are employed to tread the bellows, and on the second day were changing 12 times in the daytime and about ten times in the night. On the first day the treading is slower and the changing less frequent ; on the third day more rapid and more frequent. They change about once for two charges of the furnace ; that is about once an hour. The treading of the two men on the opposite sides of the furnace keeps time, so that the air rushes in from both sides at once ; and the flames (about three feet and a half high) rise slightly higher at that instant. The iron sand is charged only along the sides near the walls of the furnace ; and the charcoal is charged 68 slightly nearer the middle. When freshly charged the charcoal rises slightly (about a quarter of a foot) above the top of the furnace. At the time of my visit they were charging three times an hour; and on the third day they charge still oftener. The ore charged in one operation of three days amounts to 220 or 230 boxes of 14 or 15 kamme (sometimes 17 or 18 kamme) ; say 3300 kamme (out possibly about 3,600 kamme as at Amegawa). Of charcoal in the same time 4,200 or 4,300 kamme are charged ; and of wood 720 or 730 kamme are used for making ashes and 1,200 or 1,300 kamme for drying the furnace : about 2,000 kamme in all. The ashes have (o be made for each operation. The clay for building the furnace has to be brought from a distance of three quarters of a mile (11 choo), from laud belonging to the furnace owner, and the carriage costs $0.0043 for ten kamme and the digging somewhat more; say in all about one dollar for the 800 or 1,000 kamme that are needed for a furnace. There is always some slag with the dzuku at the end of the operation below the level of the bottom of the furnace, the ashes and coals beneath having become somewhat depressed ; but it does not penetrate the ashes. The whole product of one operation is from 720 to 1,020 kamme (6,000 to 8,500 Ibs.), or about 30 per cent, as at Amegawa, sometimes 1,200 kamme (10,000 Ibs.); of which the dzuku varies from 90 to 480 kamme (750 (o 4,000 Ibs). There are about sixty operations in a year ; but the num- ber varies in different years. They are idle in July and August, and in 1878 began blowing on the seventh of September. They say that in the hot weather the metal does not rnelt so- well as it does in the cold. Probably the labor of treading the bellows so rapidly is too severe in hot weather ; but the draft upward from the lire would be slightly less active, and the air slightly rarer. In Bingo, where with a four days' operation dzuku alone is made, the furnace is said to be longer and nar- rower, about 10 ft. by 2.8 ft. If the furnace is narrow there is less charcoal, and so not enough heat for steel, they say ; but for dzuku alone less charcoal is needed. The twccrs are about 20 (18 to 21) on each side of t fie furnace and are a little smaller than for making steel. The dzuku is drawn off in a melted state by the holes at the end of the furnace. In other respects, they say, the Bingo process does not specially differ from the Idzumo. As the Japanese method of making pig iron from sand ore is the only one sucessfully practised in any part of the world, and as the amount of such ore in Japan seems to be very large indeed, it is worth while to consider whether the process cannot be so improved as to be more decidedly profitable. The whole cost of the steel and pig iron pro- duct appears to made up mainly in the following proportions : Charcoal 463 per cent. Ore 38* Labor : Breaking 4^- Blowing , 1J Charging 1 "~~" ' Furnace : Wood for drying. . . , 4 Clay. 1 Labor 1 u )) Wood for ashes 2 100 Evidently the cost of fuel and ore are far the most impor- tant items, It must be borne in mind however that nearly 70 all the remaining fifteen per cent, are only about half price owing to the exceptionally low wages paid at the iron works. It seems clear that much economy might be effected as regards : 1 washing the ore ; 2 the carry- ing of the ore, fuel and other materials ; 3 the fuel ; 4 the flux ; o the breaking up the metal ; 6 the blast ; 7 the furnace building. 1. For washing the ore from the hillside it seems highly probable that the California hydraulic method might be used with profit, although the ore in inferior rock like that of Amegawa be only one half of one per cent, of the granite and in value only 3J cents to the cubic yard. In California the yield of the gravels and rocks washed in that way averages at different places from five to twenty-five cents to the cubic yard (sometimes more) ; and the method has been said to cost ten cents to the cubic yard, some say five cents, or more than six times cheaper than the method of sluicing, by which the Idzumo iron sand is now washed. Necessarily the expenses here would bo much less than in California ; for whatever canals or apparatus might be needed could be made here with labor that costs at worst hardly a fifth of that of California and the interest on capital here would not be extremely in excess of what it is there. In California, too, water is comparatively very scarce and is brought by costly acqueducts from great distances, sometimes scores of miles. Herein Japan, water is so very much more abundant that (here would be no need of such long and expensive acqueducts. In collecting the gold in California there is a little expense for quicksilver that would not be needed for the iron sand ; but it is possible that magnetized plates or bars might be profitably used to aid in retaining the iron sand in the sluices. The crumbling granite to be washed is much more friable than some of the rocks washed by the hydraulic uiethod in California, One 71 point to be considered in imagining washingf on a large scale in whether (he rice fields would probably be seriously injured by the great amount of sand carried down by the rivers. On the other hand the removal of the hills would leave more flat ground for new rice fields. 2. The cost of carrying the ore must at present beau important part (a third or even a half) of its final cost ; and with good waggon roads or with navigable streams would be much lessened. A like remark would hold good in regard to the carriage of fuel, of the metal on its way to market, of the food and comforts of life for the workmen ; and improved roads would not merely benefit the iron in- terest directly, but the farmers and other inhabitants would waste far less of their labor in mere carrying, and every industry would obviously receive advantage indi- rectly as well. Merely if seven-eighths of the cost of carrying the metal to market by land could be saved over good roads (as in the case of the coal carried to Ikuno) or about seven dollars a ton in sending to Matsue, there woul-i even now be a handsome profit in iron making. The ore at present brought from a distance to Amegawa is before using reduced by washing (it is said) to one half its weight; and therefore if the final washing were done before carrying, the cost of carriage would be reduced one half. As the fuel, including the wood, weighs sixty per- cent, more than the ore of the last washing it is desirable to carry the finally washed ore to the neighborhood of the places where, the fuel grows rather than to carry the fuel to the ore ; and fuel can be floated down stream on brooks that would not carry a boat for the ore. Neverthe- less, as ore could be carried very cheaply down in boats on the larger streams (with improved navigation) it would seem advisable to have the iron works at some distance down stream in the larger valleys near good water power rather than far Uj> in the narrow valleys among the moun- 72 tains, where the supply of fuel would be comparatively small and the water power trifling. 3. In case the iron manufacture should be very much extended it would be necessary to use coke instead of charcoal; and at places near the seashore it might already be advantageous to do so; for with furnaces built of better materials and perhaps of slightly altered dimensions its use would no doubt be possible. The iron produced would not be so good in quality as that made with charcoal; but the difference would probably be more than made up in cheapness. 4. The only flux used at present appears to be the wood ashes carefully renewed for every operation in excess of those produced by the charcoal and by the wood burnt for drying the furnace ; and probably owing to insufficient flux there is a great loss of iron in the slag ; so that only about thirty per cent of iron can be got from carefully washed ore of a kind that when perfectly pure would contain nearly three-fourths its own weight. For in order to separate the particles of quartz in the ore they must be made fusible by combining with the oxide of iron to form a slag ; and the clay (silicate of alumina) in the ore or in the walls of the furnace combining with the quartz and the oxide of iron form a fusible double silicate of alumina and protoxide of iron, also at the cost of iron. It seems desirable here to add lime to the ore charged (as is done in the blast furnaces of western countries), in order that a double silicate of alumina and lime may be formed in which the lime will take the place of iron and so in a great degree prevent its loss. The alkaline mat- ter of the wood ashes serves the same purpose, but they are much more costly than lime would be. It would be best to charge quick lime rather than limestone, and by burning the lime at the quarries there would be a sav- ing of about one-third in carriage, a point of great impor- 73 lance with the present bad roads where waggons cannot be used. Limestone is found abundantly, it is said, about four leagues east from Amogawa, at Tari village in Hino- goori, Hooki. It is also said to be found in quantity 13 leagues south-east of Minari, at Mi do village, in Nuka- goori, Bingo. 5. The present mode of breaking up the metal with the clumsy tread wheel is extremely rude and costly ; and no doubt the same end could be accomplished far more economically by water power, or possibly with the help of the very strong modern explosives. It is possible too that it would be cheapest with water power trip hammers to forge the large lumps into more suitable shapes without breaking them up into the very small bits now required by the country blacksmiths with their hand hammers. G. The blast is now produced in a very expensive way, by the labor of men; whereas so purely a mechanical kind of work could doubtless be effected much more cheaply by water power or even by horse power, and the simple machinery required would not by any means be too dif- ficult for the country carpenters to build. The blast would besides be steadier and consequently better. Moreover with water power it could probably be satisfactory in the holiest months of the year; so that more operations could be made, and the loss of interest on the capital and the deterioration of the buildings would be less for each opera- lion, or for each ton of product. If a hot blast were used instead of the present cold one there would be a very im- portant saving in expense; especially as the very abundant waste boat of the furnace could probably be used without difficulty for warming the blast. 7. The cost of the furnace itself is about $1.46 for each ton of product (of which two thirds is for the wood used in drying); and is perhaps not more than the cost would be with a high western blast furnace, if the high rate of 74 interest in Japan be considered and the great cnpital that would be needed. But some saving might probably still be effected if the low furnace were built of stone or fire- brick that could stand the heat (if any such could be ob- tained near at hand), and an apparatus were used for hoisting out the lump of steel, or if only pig iron were made, as in Bingo, and drawn off in the melted stale. The quartzite of Tamatsukuri would no doubt answer the purpose well, and could easily be carried to the iron region so near in the small quantity required, were it not for the badness of the roads, which is such an immense hindrance to every kind of industry. With a permanent stone or brick furnace (he labor and time of rebuilding for each operation would be saved ; and as the operations could follow one another at once with the furnace already hot there would be a saving of heat and consequently of fuel. In making dzuku alone, as it is drawn off melted, there need be no interruption of the process for many weeks or months. The form of the furnace would not so rapidly change, the lower part would remain narrow throughout the operation, and the hot coals of the fukutoko would therefore probably be unnecessary in order to keep up sufficient heat; so that the bottom of the furnace could be made likewise of stone or fire brick without ashes. It seems then very certain that the manufacture of iron from Japanese sand ore can without exceptionally low wages be made decidedly profitable merely by very simple improvements on the process now in use, without aspiring to any radical changes of method. The enormous quantity of suitable ore that appears to exist in Japan seems like- wise to justify the expectation that iron making will be- come a very important business. Iron sand hns been washed here and there through a space at least forty leagues (100 miles) long, and it would seem that the iron- bearing granite underlies the whole region. To be sure 75 iio careful tests of its richness or ease of working at dif- ferent points have yet been recorded ; but if the average should be anything like that of the rock called inferior at Amegawa the quantity of ore would be immense, as a little calculation will readily show. Even a single hill made up of such rock and only one mile (say 15 choo) long by one-fourth of that in average width and three hundred feet in average Jbeight would contain (atone half of one per cent.) more than a million tons of ore of the last washing. In a space 100 miles long by twenty five miles wide there would be room for ten thousand such hills with contents in ore amounting to ten thousand million tons. It would he too great boldness to say now that there is so large a space so richly filled throughout ; hut it would seem almost certain that the amount of such ore is very great indeed, and it must be very well worth while to ascertain by geological surveys how large a portion of the region con- tains it in a workable form. Indeed, the subject of iron is likely to become far the most important mining question of Japan after the coal fields of Yesso. From Minari we went northward again by the same road for a couple of leagues and then turned north-west- ward down a steep narrow valley gradually growing wider and more level to Kisuki on the Hino River, 5J leagues from Minari. All the way there were numerous exposures of the same light brown crumbling granite. A few hundred yards north of Minari we stopped a few minutes to look at an iron sand washing place, but were not so fortunate as to see the men at work. The ore is said to be brought from a quarter of a mile up stream where the rock is pulled down for the purpose. The washing is done in a sluice about forty fathoms long in eight parts of unequal length, sloping gently with the ground of a small valley, but with a fall of a couple of feet 76 between the different parts. The width of the sluice is in general about 1^- or two feet ; but in one part is four feet. The bottom is of boards, and the sides partly of boards but mostly of flat stakes. An iron hoe about, half a foot square, and a smaller long bandied wooden hoe are the tools used. The work seemed to be done by two men. AtKisuki there is a small finery forge for converting dzuku and kera into wrought iron bars. As we passed through the town in the afternoon and as the forge works only in the forenoon we had no opportunity to sco the operation ourselves ; and were afterwards disappointed in our hopes of seeing the whole process conveniently at; some other place. Never! heless I saw the fire places and tools at Kisuki and obtained some imperfect in forma! ion in regard to the details of the method. There are two forge fires, each under a hood that tapers upward into a low wide chimney, of which below the hood there is only the back wall and the right side. Be- hind the back wall there is for each fire a wooden box hand bellows with a piston and horizontal rod, like the bellows of all Japanese forges. One fire is a bloomary for reducing the dzuku apparently to blooms ; and the other fire is a chafery for making bar iron from the blooms and kera by reheating and welding. The bloomary fire place or hearth is a (rough-like space three feet long (at right angles with the backwall of the chimney), 0.6 foot deep and l.o feet wide at the top and one foot wide at the bot- tom. Ths sides are made of iron plates about 0.06 foot thick, and the bottom slopes slightly forward. The t weer or bellows nozzle enters from the bellows through the chimney back at the back end of the hearth and at the bottom of it and is level, and reaches forward to 1$ feet from the chimney back. That portion of the hearth was at the time of my visit full of forge cinders. The chafery hearth is 3.25 long, nearly at right angles with the back 77 of the chimney, 0.85 foot wide (both at top and bottom) and one foot deep at the deepest point, which was about the middle of the length. The tweer or bellows nozzle just reaches to the hearth at the back aiid is level ; and has a diameter of 0.1 o, and is made of bamboo covered with clay. The furnace and forge work lasts from midnight until noon. Charcoal is first charged upon the bloomary hearth, and upon that a'bout seven kamme of dzuku ; and then the blowing is begun. In about an hour a lump or ball is formed ; which is hammered into a bloom, and put with about the same weight of kera into the chafery fire. Each day eight blooms are so made. The bloom and kera are heated in the chafery fire and hammered repeatedly until bars are formed. During the heating, melted cinder rims , out and is drawn off from the front of the hearth. After the first hammering the lump of about five kamme is cut into four parts with chisels by four men striking with heavy hammers, on a small anvil set in the ground. Each part is made into a bar that weighs a kamme and a quar- ter (about ten pounds), and is 1.8 feet or 1.9 feet long by 0.4 feet wide and 0.03 feet or 0.04 feet thick. One cubi- cal box of charcoal of 2-^ feet on an edge, about fifty kamme in weight, it was said (but probably at least one fourth heavier than that), is burnt in a whole day's work, as I understand ; and costs about twenty cents (for each ten kamme, probably). There are eight workmen in all : two for the bellows, four for striking, one for holding the chisel and one for attending to the fire. The labour and charcoal required as here given seem rather to confirm the statement at Amegawa that the cost of converting dzuku and kera into bar iron was $2.70 a load. In one day forty karnine (333J Ibs.) of bars are produced. If the charcoal burnt weighs only about sixty kamme the econo- my is about as great as in the closely similar processes of 78 Western countries ; for there one and a half to three times the weight of the bar iron is needed. The loss of iron in fining the dzuku and kera, 37J per cent., is largo but they may be very impure so that the loss would be far from being merely in iron. The Kisuki method is not on the whole a bad one, though in western countries puddling is more economical owing to the possibility of using inferior fuel and workmen of less skill, while needing however better roads than now exist in the Japanese iron regions for more convenient concentration of materials so as to work on a large scale. From Kisuki our road four leagues north-westerly to Ootsu a league short of Imaichi lay down stream along the banks of the Ilino River, a couple of hundred yards wide but shallow, wiih high hills near on either side for the greater part of the way, and still numerous exposures of the light brown crumbling gauite. Towards Ootsu however there were exposures of greenish gray and dark brown sand rock and of gray shales weathering brown with rather steep north-westerly dips ; probably a part of the same Kamoikotan rocks that we had seen at Tnma- tsukuri. Then we came out upon a wide alluvial plain ; and passed through it by Imaichi to Kidzuki about throe leagues north* westerly on the sea shore, near the south- west end of a range of high hills and mountains along the coast from beyond Matsue. From Kidzuki we went a league and a half northerly up among the hills to the Udoo copper mines, passing numerous exposures of dark brown, sometimes light broAvn, sometimes olive, hard Kamoikotan shales, in some places black slate, in other places greenish gray shales and shaly sand rock weather- ing brown with ?omc nut size pebbles and small cubical iron pyrites. The pyrites is especially abundant near the mines. The rock thereabouts is in parts bright green and very talcose. 79 There is but one vein in the mines at present worked, though there is said to be another worthless one on the road about two-thirds of a mile to the south. The vein dips at one point 50 south 60 west. The greatest width of the vein in the portion now worked out was called (and appeared to me to be) three fathoms and a half wide, in which however is included a large lump of rock left projecting into it about parallel to the walls of the vein ; and within the length of some two fathoms the vein be- comes much narrower. In many other places the worked out vein (said to have contained ore) was five or six feet wide ; in one place, for example, about five feet wide through a length of some ten feet and a height of twelve feet. The widest of the places now worked that I saw was 3.1 feet wide, and there the vein was said to hold ore throughout though mixed more or less with cubical iron pyrites. Several other places were shown where the copper ore was 0.8 feet or 1.0 feet wide and pretty pure looking. The vein has been explored throughout a length of 160 fathoms, and appears to contain two shoots of copper ore. The north-westerly end of that space for a length of sixty fathoms and a depth of thirteen fathoms contained, it is said, much ore ; bus below that the country rock changed and there was no ore. The next forty* fathoms in length south-easterly had no ore. The next sixty fathoms contains much ore and has been worked to a depth of about eight fathoms towards (he north-west, less towards the south-east, without coming to an end of the ore. The -ore is copper pyrites ; but the greater part of the vein is filled with cubical iron pyrites, which is abundant also throughout those parts of the vein that are bare of copper ore, but is left untouched so far as may bo. The ore is said to contain a little silver, amounting to about 675- hnndredths of one per cent, of the blister copper. The vein is easier to work than tho country rock, which is therefore dug into as little as possible. 80 The mines have been worked only since 1866 (except an old abandoned drift- some fen fathoms in length on the road abont two-thirds of a mile to the south of the present mines). There arc three mines now abandoned in the north-westerly worked out end of the vein, and one, the only one now worked, in the south-easterly end. There is no mining below the level of the drainage adit. Not much timbering is needed owing to the firmness of the rock. Small two-wheeled carts are used in the mine, but there are no rails. Mine lamps of the French pattern are used. The ore is crushed, and washed by hand in the same manner as at most other Japanese copper mines. The ore is roasted only once ; for 25 days in abont 75 kilns, in general about four feet square and high, holding about five hundred kamme each ; but three of the kilns are ten feet long by six wide and four high, and roast 3,000 kammc of ore each in 30 days ; and there are eight kilns of intermediate size that roast about 1,000 kamme each. The weight of the wood burnt is about that of the ore. The smelting is done in what is called the Hitsubuki method of the neighborhood of Oosakfh The best and middle class ore is smelted in 13 mabuki hearths directly to blister copper (aradoo) ; and tho low class ore is smelted to matte (kawadoo) in two Oobuki hearths ; and the aradoo is not refined. The mabuki hearth is abont 1.75 ft. in diameter and 0.8 ft. deep with a flat bottom smaller than the top, and has a cover of clay from the back to within about 0.3 ft. from the front edge, leaving an opening there about 0.8 ft. wide. There arc two tweers at the back, about a foot apart where they enter at the upper back edge of the hearth, and they are in- clined towards each other and downwards so that each points to about the centre of the space enclosed by the hearth. The tweers are of bamboo 0.25 ft. in diameter, 81 tapering fit the end (which is made of clay) to a diameter of 0.1 ft. For each there is a box (piston) bellows .1.7 ft. high by 0.7 ft, wide with a stroke of 1.5ft. The operation is said to begin at three clock in the morning and to last until eleven ; but really ends in many cases much earlier. One hundred kamme of roasted ore are smelted in one operation and 70 kamme of charcoal are burned. The first hour and a half or two hours are spent in melting the ore with the two tweers in use at the back ; then one of the two tweers and its bellows are removed from the back and placed at the left side of the hearth and arranged there to blow over the upper edge of the hearth towards the centre ; and at the same time the other bellows at the back is stopped. The opening at the front of the hearth is generally kept closed, loosely, with flat stones and pieces of charcoal. The bellows are worked with from 22 to 40 strokes a minute, rapidly later in the operation and with great effort. About three times the blast is interrupted, the front hole opened and slag removed, which is smelted again with the ore of the next day's operation. Fifteen or twenty minutes before the smelting is completed a couple of small billets of wood are thrown in upon the melted metal. At the end, the cover, the tweer and the bellows are removed, some water sprinkled or poured on and the blister copper removed in rough, round, thin cakes, from two to four in number, commonly three. Sometimes a couple of thin cakes of matte are first taken off. The hearth is at once repaired and made ready for the next day's operation. The Oobuki hearth is of about the same shape as the mabuki one, but larger, and measures 2.25 ft. across and is said to be 1.5 ft. deep. There are two tweers at the back with a bellows for each. From three o'clock until eleven in the morning there are three operations, with a charge of 100 kamme of roasted ore in each one. The ore is simply 82 melted in one uniform operation, and the matte taken off in thin cakes. The slag runs off throughout the opera- tion ; but is especially drawn off at the end. In the year ending 30 June, 1878, it is said there were smelted 376,111 ksimme (1,400 tons), of ore and 87,138 kamme (324 tons) or 23J per cent,, of blister copper were made worth about^ one dollar a kamme ; and six tenths of such a year's supply of ore was added to the stock on hand, leaving at hist more th j.i n enough for a year and a half of smelting. The expenses of the year are represented to have been about $40,000 less than the value of the copper made ; or subtracting the cost of mining the uu smelted ore, over $46,000 less. The wood (matsu) burnt in a year amounts to 600,000 kamme, costing $2,400 ; and comes uphill from Sagiura two leagues distant. The charcoal used in a year is 350,000 kamme, costing $9,800 ; and comes from Iwami. There are about 380 workers, namely : 53 miners, 75 miners' aids, 74 kiln and furnace men, 53 ore washers (women), 80 to 100 laborers for carrying, 13 men in the office. Mining is paid by the month and not by the piece. Miners, for example, are paid $5, $4.50 and $4 a month in three classes, besides 3 too of rice worth $1.30, one shoo of oil worth $0.35, and have their dwellinghouse free of rent. In addition, the 53 miners receive all toge- ther 30 kamme of powder a month, worth $42 ; and a reward of three cents for every ten kamme of ore ; and have their pay cut down for days lost from work. It is extremely desirable that a carefull geological and topographical survey should bo made of the whole neigh- borhood of so prosperous and promising a mine ; and that, if such a survey should make it seem probable that the south-easterly ore shoot, the one now worked, continues (unlike the north-westerly one) to a considerable depth, by as seems now most likely, a drainage level should be dug from the sea shore, somewhere near the village of Sagi, or from the bottom of the valley that has its mouth there ; and that arrangements should he made to remove the smelting works to some point near the month of that level. The amount of ore that could be mined without pumping would thereby become as great as possible ; the cost of wood and charcoal would be reduced very much ; and the nearness to the little harbor of Sagi would in many ways be extremely convenient. As the vein for- tunately dips in that very direction the distance at sea level would be somewhat less than it- is in a straight line from the present mines (probably less than half a mile) ; and any future workings to the deep with pumping would be still closer to the sea shore,. and shafts there would find the smelting works already conveniently near. The small river there would perhaps furnish good means of washing the ore, and possibly supply power in addition for the mine pumps and the furnace blast. But without a careful survey and map any attempt to begin a new level or like improvements would mo^t likely lead to costly blunders. We retraced our steps from Udoo and Sagi to Kidzuki, and recrossed the alluvial plain to Maki on the Kaudo River half a league westerly from Imaichi ; and under mistaken impressions went up the river southward, two leagues nnd a half to the Otlatsu copper mines, the owners of which were anxious to borrow money from the govern- ment for carrying on their work. It, turned out that the mines had been abandoned as unprofitable in the spring of 1878, after having been worked since the spring of 1875. The chief rock of the region forms high dark gray cliffs along the river, and is a hard dark gray and dark brown coarse tufa pebble rock with pebbles of partly vitreous blackish, partly fine granular gray vesicular andesite con- 84 taming very minute crystals or grains of glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), augite and magnetite, and in the cavities a very thin, greenish white, rather soft lining with a very few extremely minute crystals of heu- landite apparently. There are said (o be three mines and two ore veins. The veins are admitted to have been too thin to work with profit ; but the miners were always in hopes of coming upon some wide vein of which the two were supposed to be mere branches. They said that some foreigner, who in passing visited the place, encourag- ed them in that belief; but I do not know of any grounds for it, not of any reason whatever to believe that the mines or veins would be any more profitable in the future than they have been in the past. The veins have been tested in the most thorough, though the cost- liest, way by three or four years of digging on them ; and the probability is that the same number of years more of digging would meet with no better result. Some speci- mens of ore were shown ; chiefly copper pyrites with cubi- cal iron pyrites, and one with zinc blende, and one with some malachite. The gangue is gray quartz. In the year ending 31 March. 1878, about 24 tons (6,626 kamme) of ore were smelted, and produced a little over three tons (848.4 kamme), or 12.8 per cent., of crude copper worth a dollar a kamme, or say $850 in all. The ore on hand grew less in the same year by over 1,200 kamme. The current expenses in the same time (excluding the yearly tax of about $4) are re- presented to have been $3,697; of which about two-thirds, $2,289 was for mining proper, and about one-third, 1408, was for dressing, roasting and smelting the ore. There appears then to have been a loss of at least $2,850. There is said to be a copper mine, or rather a trial dig- ding at Ashidani, a mile and a quarter up the Kando river from the Ottatsu mines ; but the work there was 85 stopped in August or September, 1878. The prospect is represented to be very promising, and the owners likewise hope that the government will lend money for the work. We returned down the Kando River past Maki to Koshi in the plain half a league beyond. Between the two, iron sand is washed in the broad shallow bed of the stream ; and we saw about ten men at the work, in pairs. It is said there are sometimes twenty men so washing, some- times only one ; also that the washing of iron sand in the river there began only in 1878, and that in four months (from the fifth to the eighth, lunar style) about 1,000 loads of 30 kamme each worth nine cents a load were pro- duced. With good luck a man and his aid have washed six such loads in a day ; but that is unusual. The method is simply with a large wooden shovel to make a heap, a couple of feet high above water, of the best of the river sand (chiefly granitic and reddish in color, except where a little blackish with iron ore), and with a large long- handled wooden dipper to throw water on an upstream edge of the heap or a little to one side ; so that the lighter particles are carried away by the current. The washing seems to bo very profitable as wages go in that region. From Koshi we went across the alluvial plain westerly a league and a half to Jundookichi, on the bank of a small lake and near the sea ; and thence through sandy low hills of reddish gray fine sand, that may have come from 1 granitic rocks, half a league further to the sea shore at Aokii Thence the road took us southerly, near the sea past occasional exposures of level or nearly level bedded greenish gray shales or slialy soft sand rock to Kumu- ra, three leagues from Koshi and then south-westerly* still among low hills near the shore and with like rock exposure, to Taki village half a league beyond Kumura. There we saw some fossils in loose blocks of the sand rock, and Mr. Adachi brought some away. They are 86 all very imperfect., almost all bivalves with the white shells partly preserved, but one univalve cast, and one very small fragment that looks like a belernnitc or belemnitella, which would go to show that the rock was at least as old as (he cretaceous. The stone contains grains of limpid quartz and small reddish felsitic pebbles, about the size of a pea, and greenish sand ; all ap- parently from Ivamoikotan rocks, without any volcanic materials. The rock is probably of about the same age with the coal bearing rocks near Matsue, and perhaps with the ammonite bearing rocks near the coal of Yesso. Going further westward among the hills near the sea- shore we found the rock exposures more pebbly and coarse, hard, greenish gray and greenish brown to the boundary of Iwami ; and then with the pebble rock much yellowish brown shales ; and a little short of Hane (four leagues from Kumura) there was no more of the pebble rock, but a soft very fine grained light gray, greenish gray or greenish brown tufa sand, sometimes with a few pebbles and among them a little fibrous pumice ; and so on a couple of leagues south-westward, nil her inland, to Oota, willi some hard light brown pebble rock again near that (own. At a small river half a league beyond Oo(a the pebbles were in great part of Kamoikotan rocks, but partly of old volcanic andesite containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase)^ augite, magnetite and brown or blackish mnscovite in a pule red or pale greenish gray, fine grained matrix. The source of all these old volcanic rocks is no doubt the rather fresh looking ex- tinct volcano Sambei, which is called about eight leagues by mountain road, probably not half that in a straight line, to the south-east of Oota. Another half league south-westerly mostly through alluvial flat laud brought us to columnar very dark gray fine grained andesife containing a little glassy triclinic 87 feldspar (probably oligoclase), angite and magnetite. Some of the columns are ten feet long and a foot and a half in diameter ; and the dip at right angles to them is 15 north 75 east. There were but a couple of exposures of the columnar rock, on either side of the village of Kuri ; and between (hem and beyond there were many of level bedded light greenish gray soft tufa sand rock weathering brownish, along the road up a narrow valley south-west- ward to near the village of Oomori (three leagues from Oota), and even half a league further, or nearly up to t hat part of the same village called Ginzan-machi, some 500 feet above the sea. At Ginzan-machi and a few hundred yards beyond, the rock exposed is a hard, rough- feeling, but slightly decomposing, gray andesite contain- ing much white, granular, mostly decomposing, but partly glassy, triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), minute angite and very minute magnetite and decomposing mica (probably mnscovite). Close to the village and the main road there are in the same rock the formerly celebrated silver mines, called the Iwami Ginzan or Oomori Ginzan. There are said to be about thirty veins, all running about east and west ; and towards the east the country rock is harder and the veins narrower, half a foot to one foot at most, while towards (ho west the rock is softer and the veins wider ; and si ill westward again the rock changes and the veins run out. There are (it is said) many veins that are half a foot or one foot wide, but three that are much wider. One of them is said to be three fathoms wide, another one fathom ; and the third about three feet. The greatest length that has been worked on any vein is said to bo die very moderate one of about 750 feet. The greatest width of ore now worked is said to be about half a foot ; but the best specimens shown me (from the Shinkuchi mine) in- dicated a width of about 0.2 ft. of copper pyrites ; and in 88 another case (from the Shoorenji mine) a width of 0.1 ft. of copper pyrites about half filled with ore, of which there was said to be another corresponding layer of like thickness on the other side of the vein. Specimens from the Mikiyama mine showed an average width of about 0.02 of copper pyrites. The specimens were said to show the full width of the best ore places now worked. The ore is chiefly copper pyrites associated with much car- bonate of iron and zinc blende, which with quartz gangue fill up the greater part of the vein in the specimens shown. Sometimes there are traces of white kaolin ; and it is said there is sometimes silver ore visible. In one mine (the Saisei) there is galena of which several specimens were shown that indicated a width of 0.6 ft. (said to be the full width of the vein) of galena chiefly, and apparently some black silver sulphuret (stephanite). The galena was rather coarsely crystalline. It is said to yield six-tenths of one per cent, of the ore in silver and 15 per cent, of lead. A very little carbonate of iron was associated with the galena. At the mines there is also found a pulverulent red hematite, associated with sulphate of baryta. The red powder is purified by washing, and sold at a high price as a medicine under the name of mumeoi, especially as a styptic for stanching bleeding wounds. Formerly arsenic was found in the mines ; but for some time none has been produced. In the silver obtained from smelting all the ores there are said to be eight-tenths of one per cent, in weight of gold ; but it is commonly not separated. The vein rock is in general harder than the country rock. The mines were begun about 600 years ago, and have been worked continuously ever since. They were especially flourishing about 300 years ago ; and are said to have yielded then 3,600 kamme of silver or over half a million dollars, for yeai ly four or five years, and 3,000 kam- me and 2,000 kamme a year for a long time. But the ore 89 above water level has been gradually exhausted ; and in the great, earthquake of 1872, so much money was lost in the region that capital has been lacking to work vigorously the small and even large places above water level that are believed still to contain good paying ore. Consequently there is a strong desire to borrow money for the purpose from the government. The mines at present are worked on a smsill scale by two individuals or separate firms or companies. One is Mi 1 . Adachi Soc- mon's, who has worked the mines since 1874, with furnaces a couple of hundred yards off the main road at Ginzan-machi. The other consists of three men who have been mining since August, 1877 ; and at the time of our visit had their furnaces a hundred yards or so still higher up the hill, but were building new ones in the village itself. It is said that in all there are about 300 mines, about 150 in each ownership ; bub each is now working only two. There is a low drainage level that is 5,400 feet long and cuts across the veins and is the longest drift. The longest one lengthwise of the veins is about 750 feet long. The mines extend to a height of 150 fathoms above water level, and 15 or 16 years ago were worked in the Salsei mine to a depth of about forty feet below it, with the help of Japanese bamboo pumps. The drainage level would appear to discharge about 1\ cubic feet a second. There is said to be a good deal of water in the mines, probably owing to unevenness in cutting the drift. The mining galleries are narrow, in the old style ; but powder is now used. - The ore is sorted broken and roasted in the Japanese methods, similar to those of Udoo, Adakae and other mines ; but at present only on a very small scale. At Mr. Adachi Soemon's place there are five kilns for rmsling ore and one for roasting matte. Three of the 90 ore kilns are for 100 kamine each, and the other two for 300 kamme each; and the kiln for matte holds 20 kamme. The ore is roasted only once, and but three or four days, and about 30 kainme of wood (mixed kinds) are used for 100 kamme. The kawa is roasted seven times ; and about ten kamme of like wood are used in each roasting. The ore is smelted to matte in three arabuki hearths, which are of about the shape of a hollow hemisphere with a diameter of !! ft. and a depth of 0.8 ft. There are two tweers with a diameter of 0.15 ft. at the upper back edge of the hearth, 0.72 ft. apart, both inclined towards each other and downwards so as to point at the middle of the hearth at a level about 0.15 ft. lower than the edge. The hearth is under the usual broad hood that tapers upward into a low chimney made of bamboo plastered over with clay. The baok chimney wall reaches to the ground, and behind it there is a common box bellows, for each tweer. The arabuki operation is carried on nearly every day, but was not on the day of our visit. The charge consists (they say) of the roasted product of 100 kamme of raw ore and about 40 (30 to 50) kamme of charcoal. The operation lasts about six hours and yields about ten (five to 20) kamine of matte in thin cakes. Four men are employed at each hearth, of whom three are for the bellows. The matte is smelted to blister copper (aradoo) in a single mabnki hearth, of a shape similar to that of the arabuki hearth but of smaller size, 0.8 ft. in diameter and 0.5 ft. in depth, with the same two tweers, bellows and chimney. The hearth is covered for about two-thirds of the diameter from the back with a clay cover that can be removed without breaking, and even the small opening so left in front has a cover in three or four pieces with slight cracks between ; except the left hand corner of the front, which is a triangle with a base of about half a foot and is closed by coals that are occasionally removed during the opera- 01 U JL tion, while the opposite corner is kept covered with fine black charcoal. The mabuki operation is not done every day now, the ore is so scanty, and they blow only when 100 kamme of matte have accumulated. In September, 1878, for example they blew 17 times. They charge in each operation about thirty kamme of matte and about three kamme of slag from the preceding operation and burn about twenty kamme of charcoal of this and the following liquation and cupellation all together (the last two requiring comparatively little); and obtain about four or five kamme of blister copper from 100 karame of the raw ore. Four men do the work, including three for the bellows ; but the day of our visit there were only three men in all. That day's operation was made with a hearth of the size of the arabuki hearth ; and began they said with 25 kamme of matte and yielded eight kamme blister copper. They had begun blowing at daylight ; and about five hours afterward were blow- ing with only one bellows, which was placed square in front of the hearth. The tweer was pointed down- ward at an angle of say 70 with the horizon, and passed through the middle piece of the front of the cover about 0.2 ft. from the front edge of the hearth. The diameter of the twcer was about 0.1 ft. The bellows' man was working very hard with 32 strokes a minute, which he afterwards increased to 35. About an hour later, they skimmed cff half a dozen masses of slag as large as the fist after having'put in a small stick of wood and covered the molten metal with charcoal. Still an hour later they removed a dozen such masses of slag ; and in another hour, more again. Then after half an hour more they stopped the blast, took away the bellows and tweer and the whole front of the cover, poured on some water, and took off" two or three small irregular masses of matte, about 0.8 ft. long by 0.5 ft. wide and 0.03 thick. Then more water was poured on and similar irregular, somewhat thicker masses of blister copper were taken off" 'two or three times until the hearth was empty. Filially the back half of the cover was removed without breaking ; and the hearth was ready to be repaired for the next operation. The liquation process (uambambuki) is next carried out to separate the silver from the copper. About three kamme of blister copper is charged with 1^- kamme of lead (bought at Oosaka), and melted together. The lead is separated from the copper by liquation and carries with it most of the silver. The remaining copper somewhat diminished in weight from what was charged is called nambandoo, and is sold at Oosaka. The lead obtained is also somewhat less in weight than the original amount ; and is cupelled at once-iii charges of three kamme, with an operation about three hours long. The result in silver is said to be seven- hundredths to one-tenth of one per cent, of the raw ore. The ashes of the cupellation hearth are mixed hard wood ashes ; and sometimes two ov three too are used for one hearth, according to size. There is still another process called the koobuki, in which they charge as much as 25 kamme ; but that is not now practised here. At the upper furnaces the ore and matte are roasted just as afc Mr. Adachi's place ; and the arabuki is the same. There are eight roasting kilns, of which four are for matte; and they average 20 kamme each in capacity. There is but one arabuki hearth, and it has a diameter of 1.6 ft. and depth of 1.1 ft. and two tweers, wit'j a diameter of 0.1 ft., at the upper back edge of the hearth, 0.25 ft. apart, pointing to a level 0.3 ft. below the front edge, and so inclined towards each other as to aim cross- wise at points 0.7 ft. apart on the front of the hearth. The treatment of the roasted matte is, however, different from that of the lower furnaces ; and it is smelted to blister copper by the ginzauibuki, a process followed U3 generally, they say, where there is much silver. The ginzambuki is done in a hearth in the ground, like the mabuki and arabuki hearths, but of a little different shape and size. The back of the hearth is nearly a flat plane, so that the shapa of the hearth at top is about semicircular with a diameter from right to left of 1.5 ft. and from front to back (radius of the semicircle) of 0.8 ft. (as it was called, though at the time of my visit it had worn to 1.0 ft.); and with a depth of 0.35 ft. There arc two tweers apparently about level at the upper edge of the hearth 0.35 ft. apart, each with a common box bellows behind the chimney back, that separates the bellows from the hearth and supports the usual wide hood. The hearth has no cover. Twelve operations are made in a day often hours; but on the day of our visit there were only four operations, ending before four o'clock. The charge in each operation is eight kamme of matte, about four kamme of the galena ore and two kamme of litharge from the cupellation, and five kamme of charcoal; and the the product of twelve operations is 40 kamme of blister copper besides about 18 kamme of matte. The charcoal is charged first and on it the matte with no charcoal on top; Mini the work consists in keeping the tweer holes open. The matte melts and sinks to the bottom ; and upon its surface floats some slag (which is thrown away) and about 1J kamme of matte, and at the very bottom is the blister copper; all three of which are removed only at the end of the operation. The blister copper next passes to the uambambuki which is much like that of Mr. Adachi Soemon's place. The furnace proper is built of stone in front of a common back chimney wall or screen (behind which there is a single box bellows of the usual kind), and is two feet long at right angles with that wall and one foot wide and per- haps a foot deep at (he back, from which a vaulted clay 94 cover slopes slightly forward. In the side of the cover there is a hole ahout 0.2 ft. in diameter, at about that dis- tance from the back, and through it coals are put in and flames come out. The front end of the furnace is closed by a movable brick piece nearly semicircular in shape a foot wide and 0.6 ft. high having a hole a little above its centre about 0.06 ft. in diameter.- Below the brick there is a gently sloping forehearth somewhat trough shaped, about 0.8 ft. wide at the back and perhaps half that in front and perhaps a foot and a half long, adjoined in front by a rather steep slope of perhaps a foot in length down to the ground. The forehearth is repaired a little every day ; but the furnace proper is mended a little only once in about two months. Two complete nambambuki operations lasted on the afternoon of my visit about six hours. In each complete operation the charge is three kamme of blister copper, 3^ kamme of litharge and three kamme of charcoal. All the copper is charged at the beginning, but only two kamme of the litharge ; and the result is 1.4 kamme of argentiferous lead (shiborinamari) of the first quality, which yields 2 T 2 n per cent, in silver. Then 1^ kamme more of litharge are added to the copper in the furnace, and the argenti- ferous lead obtained by the rest of the operation is of the second quali'y and yields one per cent, in silver. The copper is then withdrawn from the furnace and amounts to 2.8 kamme. It is called nainbanshiboridoo, and is sold at Oosaka ; and still contains a little silver. Also the other 200 me of copper remain in the form of slag, and are smelted again in the ginzambuki hearth, in charges of about eight kammo at a time. In the operation, after the melting together of the blister copper and litharge, portions of the mixture arc from time to time raked for- ward as a pasty mass from the furnace upon the forehearth. The workman then almost continually presses it flatwise 95 with the bottom side of a wooden billet about a foot long and a quarter of a foot thick fixed lengthwise to the end of a long iron and wooden handle; but often with the point of the wood he pushes back the paste into rough cross furrows or irregular waves. Occasionally too with a small iron hoe he pushes the paste back into high cross ridges and deep furrows. Meanwhile the more fusible lead separates from the pasty copper, and carrying with it the silver trickles down the gentle slope of the fore- hearth and the steeper slope in front of that, and cools to an irregular solid mass on the ground below. When the half operation I saw was two-thirds finished, the furnace front was opened and the coals removed from over the metal there by means of a small iron shovel; and all the melal was pushed back from the forehearth into the furnace again. The furnace front was then closed once more and coals put over the opening and over the hole near the back of the furnace cover. In five minutes the front coals were taken away, as the metal had become hot enough again, and the wooden billet was used anew for pressing the pasty mass. Finally the operation ended with cooling the mass of metal remaining in the furnace after removing the coals from the front part. The cupellatiou (haibuki) is similar to that at Mr. Adachi Soemon's furnaces; but I only saw a very small operation that was made as an assay of ten momme of shiborinamari. The cupellation hearth was made of ashes on the -ground, and was about a foot in diameter at the bottom, about 0.3 ft. high and with a hollow of about half a foot in diameter at the top. There was a gentle blast given by a box bellows of the usual shape but very small, only about 1^ ft. long, and worked with one hand, In (he first half of 1878, at the upper furnaces they smelted 20.4 tons (5,479.5 kammo) of ore, and made nearly 1^ tons (330.8 kamme), or six per cent, of copper, sold 96 for $301.47, and 45f Ibs. (5.4795 kamme) or -^ of one per cent., of silver, sold for $828.20; or in all $1,129.67. The expenses (besides $3 taxes) are said to have been $957.24, of which $669.24 were for the mines, and $288 for the dressing, roasting and smelting of the ore. The number of men employed is 40, of whom 24 are miners 13 are furnace men and ore washers, and three arc in the office. At Mr. Adachi Soemon's places there are 22 men employed; namely, 12 miners, 7 furnace men and three in the office. Wood is brought from up stream, and cosls 22 or 23 cents for 100 kamme. Charcoal comes from two or three leagues to the eastward, and costs 55 cents for 30 kamme (one load). One too (about half a bushel) of ashes costs about two cents. A miner's wages are 14 cents without rice ; a furnace man's, 10 cents; and a woman's, at ore washing, eight cents. To mine a length of five feet by 1.5 ft. (or 1.3 ft.) in width and 4 feet in height costs in the hard places in the vein nine dollars; in a soft place Fix dollars; in the country rock six dollars ; including the cost of rice, powder and oil. With the present exceptionally low wages there is a little profit, as already seen. It is highly probable that the veins that have yielded so finely in former times would still be worth working below water level with modern ap- pliances for raising water. It must however be borne in mind that the veins are very short ones, and even the three wide ones may not continue wide to a great depth ; and that the greatest prosperity was very long ago, and that the workings of the last 300 years have perhaps been penetrating to gradually poorer and poorer places as they grew deeper. The mines seem to be well worthy of a careful and thorough geological and topographical survey, which would most likely prove to be a satisfactory guide to future working. Il would be folly to undertake any great outlay without first making such a survey at com- 97 paratively little expense ; and no very costly works should be established without having first (by exploratory min- ing, if necessary) the certainty of a satisfactory amount of ore. The mines are in one respect pretty conveniently situated, for they are only a couple of leagues from two small har- bors on the sea shore. The road to Ooda is mostly down hill ; and, though only a bridle path, might without much difficulty bo replaced by a waggon road. The road to- wards Hamada would be much more difficult to improve. Our road from Ginzanmachi rose steeply about 250 feet higher and crossed a pass where the slightly decompo- sing andesite rock already described is much exposed, in some places crumbling; and then descended to Nishida a league distant to the northwest, near the sea shore. At Nishida we were shown specimens of alum stone that were said to come from a place a mile and a quarter to the northeast. It was said to be found in a hole about one foot in diameter in a rock as big as a house. The lirown crumbling powder of the stone is said to be used instead of alum; and has its taste, The stone is likewise a decomposing andesite containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), augite, magnetite and decomposing mica. About two-thirds of a mile forward from Nishida, at a spot called Sakanczaka, just short of the top of a low hill there is afc the road side an exposure of about a foot in thickness of 'quite unworkable, dark gray, slightly car- bonaceous, heavy shale or extremely impure lignite. It- dips 20 south 60 west. It is probably of about the age of the Toshibets group of rocks in Yesso. At Nishida they told us about some hot springs at Yunotsu, on the sea shore 1^ leagues forward from Nishida, but not by the Hamada road that we look. There are two springs just alike about 120 yards apart, 98 They are hot, .but you can hold your hand in the water where it issues from the mouth of the pipe, and no cold water is added for bathing ; probably about 43C. They have a little saltish taste, and a little smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. From Sakauezaka we went westward among rather low hills not very far from the sea shore, with exposures here and there of the same decomposing gray or greenish brown or light ' brown andesite, in some places firm, in others crumbling, often clearly about level, to Kuroma- tsu, by the sea three leagues from Nishida. From Kuro- rantsu the road three leagues to Goota ran a little south of west along the sea beach of light brown loose sand, or very near the sea over low hills of loose sand, or with oc- casional exposures further on of hard gray micaceous por- phyry, or again of hard pebble rock like that near the Iwami and Idzumo boundary, quickly succeeded as there by greenish gray and greenish brown soft tufa sand rock for a short distance, and then by the hard gray porphyry again, to Goota, a small seaport at the mouth of a pretty large river three leagues from Kuromatsu. Near Goota there were some exposures of crumbling brown granite, and it was said that iron sand was washed a couple of leagues upstream, south-eastward. Such exposures with some brown shales and some of firmer granite continued here and there along the road over low hills to the sea beach at Hashi which we traversed for a distance of about a league. Thence passing some pale red tufa pebble rock and yellowish brown and reddish brown perhaps tufaceous sand we met with many more exposures of brown or gray and greenish brown crumbling granite and brown granitic sand till we reached Hamada a seaport of some importance, six leagues from Goota. Near Hamada we heard some- thing of the great earthquake of 1872, which was felt most in that town though more or less through a space of 99 several hundred miles. It was said by some that out of a thousand houses there 850 were shaken down ; but that was probably an exaggeration, and it would appear that only poorly built houses fell. From Hamada we went south-westward along the sea shore or near it over low hills with numerous exposures of gray and brown Kamoikotan shales, oflen crumbling, to Misumi (5J leagues) and for a league or more beyond. Then still near the sea through a like hilly country to Tsuda on the shore some four leagues westerly from Misumi (here were many exposures of brown or reddish brown crumbling granite and in one spot at least, near a low mountain pass, about 700 feet high a couple of leagues short of Tsuda there was a fine grained diorite with many minute specks of yellow iron pyrites and a very little dark brown mica. Then shortly beyond Tsuda brown and gray, level bedded shales were exposed here and there among low hills for a league or so south-westerly to nearMasnda, five leagues from Misumi. Near Masuda there were a few exposures of brown and gray crumbling granite, and then (here were brown shales again. Nearly a league beyond Masuda however there were exposures of level bedded greenish gray soft shaly sand rock containing at one point by the road side a streak of black shining bituminous coal about 0.1 ft. thick and five feet long, and the similar level shales east of Masuda probably belong to the same for- mation. From near Masuda we left the shore of the Japan Sea and went up southerly the hilly valley of the Takatsu River, a rallier small stream. For half a league br so beyond the coalstreak there were exposures of like greenish gray soft level sand rock and then of pebble rock probably of the same formation. Thence brown and light gray and blackish Kamoikotan shales occurred here and there all the way to Tsuwano, eight leagues from Masuda. In approaching Tsuwano we had views of the conical, lOU- volcanic looking Awano Mountain perhaps half a league south-easterly from Tsuwano; but as we did not meet with any volcanic rocks its eruptions probably were not very extensive. Its volcanic character however is confirmed by Mr. Takashima Toknzoo, who lias given much time to the study of Ihe neighboring province of Nagato, and according to whom the rocks of the mountain are basaltic. The old Sasagatani copper mines in Nakagoya, a part of Toyoka village,- are said to be three leagues northerly from Tsuwano. It is said that their yearly product is 4J tons (1,360 kamme) of blister copper. As we were told, some arsenic is now found there. From Tsuwano, which is about 550 feet above Ihe sea, we travelled south-westward and crossed within a league a pass about 1,300 feet above the sea, and entered there the province of Nagnto. Going thence six leagues south- westerly to Makidani descending a rather wide valley with a little alluvial land in its upper part, near Taka- nosu, 1\ leagues from Tsuwano among the mountains, we then ascended a narrow branch valley westerly for two leagues and a half, past Sliiuome to a pass about 1,200 feet high above the sea, and entering there the province of Suoo went southerly down a steep narrow valley that gradually widened out and grew level until we reached the large town of Yamagnchi in the edge of a broad alluvial plain. There were many exposures along (he road of gray and brown mostly crumbling quart z por- phyry; containing, for example, at the Shinome pass much quartz in dark brown pea size crystals and very numerous, but minute decomposing white feldspar crystals in a scanty reddish and greenish gray decomposing matrix. About a league and a half short of Yamagnchi there w r as an exposure of dark gray shales ; and the rest of the way was gently sloping ground without rock exposures. The Zoomcki copper mines in Nagato, arc four leagues 101 westerly from Takanosu, on the road to Hagi. We were told at Shinomo that the blister copper was sent out by that village (no doubt on its way to Oosaka), and that there were about fifty loads of it a month amounting to about 1,600 kararae, or about 5^ tons. They said that the ore of late had been more abundant than formerly and the product consequently greater ; but that the working of the silver and antimony (shirome) mine there had been abandoned. At Yarnaguchi we were shown by the prefecture a very neatly drawn and colored geological map of the two provinces of Nagato and Snoo made by Mr. Takashima Tokuzoo,, who had for the purpose spent three years in visiting every part of those provinces. So far as my own observations go, the geographical limits of the different kinds of rock would seem to be very carefully given, and probably they are equally correct everywhere else* In addition to " basalts,, porphyries and granites " he separately colors six divisions of sedimentary rocks, besides two subdivisions, and doubtless quite correctly as regards their relative superposition^ though the French stratigra- phies 1 names he gives to them can hardly be exact. There was al.-so a neat map by him that showed in five colors the limits of as many kinds of topography, such as plains, steep, high mountains and the like ; but without any heights given, as he had no barometer. It would be very advisable to publish the essential parts of both maps, especially the geological one. In the western edge of the town of Yamaguchi there are some hot springs, seven in all, within a space of perhaps forty yards in length. The temperatures in the baths, over the points where the water issues from the alluvium, were 42, 43, 43, 44, 45, 46, and 51 C. The water contains enough sulphuretted hydrogen to smell decidedly of it and to blacken silver strongly. The 102 cpiantily of water that flows at each place appears not to bo very great ; and the baths, about 45 cubic feet each, are emptied but three times a day, about five or six hours apart, only showing thereby a yield of at least about a gallon a minute. From Yamaguchi we went south-westward by the main road about nine leagues to Fuuaki and eight from Sbiinonoseki. The road was in general very level and for the first league lay in the midst of the alluvial plain, then for half a league or so as far as Ogoori, it ran along the foot of low hills on the right and half a mile from high ones on the left, with a number of roadside ex- posures of dark gray mica schist that in parts had a great deal of white quartz. Thence the road had a more westerly course at first though nearly level ground but afterwards more hilly and across a low pass a couple of hundred feet high ; with exposures here and there of brown, greenish brown, gray, or reddish gray crumbling granite. Near the pass (where we entered Nagato again) the granite is reddish gray coarse grained and handsome with pale red orthoclase, greenish white nearly transparent triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), grayish quartz, blackish green mica and traces of magnetite. About a league short of Funaki there is an exposure of dark green coarse-grained diorite containing greenish triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase ) greenish black hornblende and a few minutes specks of pyrites* Coal is worked near Funaki at several mines in the 1 village of Ariho, about a league to the south ; at some smaller ones in Onoda, a league further on, near the sea shore ; at others again in Ube, likewise on the seashore, perhaps still a league beyond southward ; and at a few small mines in other neighboring villages. There are two miniug companies : one is called the Arihokaisha and has the mines of Ariho and Onoda, as well as one at 103 Hirabara, about a league south-west of Ariho, and one at Sue about a league and a half soutb of Ariho ; and the other company, called the Fukubara Hoosan has the Ube mines. The coal-rocks form a very small field, and rest upon the granite which is the only rock to be seen until you come close to the mines. According to the apparent- ly careful outlines drawn on Mr. Takashima's map the extent of the field is about 22 square miles. The coal beds are said to lie in wave form, but with very gentlo dips. There appear to be but two beds of coal that nre worked at Ariho (or probably in the whole coal field) : the Nakabori, containing 3J feet of coal ; and the Chiu- goo, or Mashika, 25 (in some places 35) feet belo\v, with 2\ feet of coal exclusive of some refuse (some say about three feet of coal and one of refuse). The distance be- tween the beds of coal varies from place to place ; and the quality of the coal varies too. Although the Mashika and Chiugoo are the same bed at separate places, their quality is different. The quality is said to be best near the Kawaraya mine in Ariho and for a few hundred yards up-stream ; thence f irther up-stream and down-stream the quality is inferior. The Nakabori coal is rather worse than the Chiugoo. Over the Nakabori there is said to be black hard stone ; and for 20 feet in thickness the stone is hard. The Chiugoo likewise is said to have a strong roof of hard black stone ; and to have hard stone all the way up to the Nakabori. There are also some three or four smaller seams of coal that are not worked. At Ube and Onoda they work only the Nanakoo coal bed (said to be probably the same as the Chiugoo, which it resembles) and the Niudoo about 15 feet above (corresponding therefore to the Nakabori). The Ube coal is called better than the Chiu- goo, but the Onoda inferior, The coal that I sa\v in the heaps at the boat landing in Ariho (from the Chiugoo, 104- Mashika and Nakabori) was poor looking, slaty, small and dirty ; though there were many lumps a foot or more in size that seemed very firm. The following is an old section at Ariho shown us at Yamaguchi, as it had been prepared by the Ariho coal company : fCoal 0.6 Double Bed J Dark yellow stone 0.2 (Coal :. 1.2 Stone 20.0 Purple stone 0.5 f Coal 0.6 I Black slate 0.2 I Coal 0.5 Four Ply Coal ^ Black slate 0.2 Coal 0.5 Black slate 0.4 I Coal 0.8 Black slate 0.8 f Coal 1.3 Black slate 0.4 Coal 0.5 Nakabori Coal 4 Black slate 0.4 Coal 0.8 Black slate 0.3 I Coal 0.7 Blackish stone , 2.0 Sokobori C'oal Coal 1.5 Stone 35.0 Blackish stone 0.3 fCoal 0.3 Blackish stone 1.0 Coal 0.8 Blackish stone 0.4 Coal 0.7 Blackish stone 0.3 Coal 0.7 Blackish stone 0.2 I Coal 0.2 Stone 15.0 f Coal 0.8 Santoku Coal -< Dork yello\v stone 0.2 ("Coal 0.9 Chiugoo Coal 4 91.2 105 The coal is mined in the post and stall or bord and pillar system ; but with very long narrow pillars. The mines at Ariho are partly at least in the flat alluvial ground along the small river that flows past Fuuaki to the sea near Onodn. The mining is therefore carried on only in the winter half of the year, beginning in the middle of October and ending in April, when the paddy fields are not flooded. On the other hand the carrying of the coal takes place in the summer season, while the mines are full of water ; and meantime the coal is in piles in the open air. As the mines are below water level they have to be pumped, and Japanese pumps of bamboo are used. It is said that 5,600 koku of water are raised a height of sixty feet, on a slope, it must be, of 45, as that of the Kawaraya mine, in one day by 80 men, that is 70 koku, or 3,360 American gallons, or 2,800 English gallons, or 1,176,000 foot pounds to each man, a very good result. It costs thirty dollars a day to pump the Kawaraya mine in the rice fields of Ariho ; and $150 a day to pump the four mines of the company. As the mines were not yet pumped dry at tha time of my visit in October I did not go into them. The mines have inclined shafts (slopes), in which the pumps are also inclined ; and the coal is brought out on the backs of men. The coal is carried from the mines to the small river at Ariho partly on two wheeled carts on roads that have, in places at least, planks laid lengthwise at each side for the wheels ; and partly on horseback, and partly on the backs of the men that lead the horses. From the Mashika mine at Ariho the coal is carried on horses about a third of a mile ; from the Nakabori mine in Ariho it is carried about a mile and a half, and even more than two miles from the farthest place. The Mashika and Nakabori mines pro- duce coal about equally and both together about 300,000 piculs in a year. The Onoda mines yield about 100,000 106 piculs ; making about 400,000 piculs a year for the whole product of the two villages. The Ube mines yield, it is said, about 300,000 piculs a year ; making in all about 700,000 piculs, or 41,741 tons, as the yearly product of the whole coal field except some very small mines ou the west. It is obvious that the carrying of such considerable quantities of coal could he very much cheapened by improved methods, such as the use of tramways and cars, with shoots for loading and unloading. It is probahle too that moderately costly improvements in the navigation of the river would make it navigable for the small coal boats to some distance further up stream so as very much to facilitate carriage from the upper mines. It is evidens too that with fuel so close at hand small steam pumps would be cheaper than the present pumping by human labor. There are, it is said, old abandoned mines under the rice fields adjacent to the mines now worked, and full of water that is liable, if approached too closely, to flood the present working and thereby add to the pumping labor that would be required. The precise position of such dangerous spots would seem to be known only by tradi- tion, if at all j and in time the uncertainty must become greater and greater. As the whole amount of workable coal in the 22 square miles would be 22 million tons for every foot of average thickness of the beds that can be worked, it is clear that the field, although it must contain less than a hundred million tons of such coal, (and probably not more that 35 millions according to the averages of our Yesso surveys) will be worked for a very great number of years ; and it is therefore highly important that all the facts in regard to the position of worked out, abandoned mines and other features of the coal beds should be ascer- tained as fully as possible by a thorough survey and recorded in maps auc] reports, 107 Returning up the narrow flat valley bordered by low hills, past numerous exposures of brown crumbling and reddish gray granite to the edge of Funaki, I went by the main road again, southwesterly to Shimonoseki, all the way among low hills, and the last third of the way near the seashore. The exposures of granite quickly came to an end, but first were seen to be overlain by some of the coal-rocks, a greenish gray soft sand rock with an inch or soof black coal slate that thinned out within ten yards, with a dip of 18 N. 55 W. ; and coal was said to be dug a short distance to the north of the road. Then there were exposures of light brown and greenish gray shales pro- bably of the coal formation ; but at about a league from Funaki, at a pass a couple of hundred feet high, there was exposed a very fine grained, greenish brown weathering, greenish gray granite ; and after that there were brown and gray shales again for another league to near Fukuda. Thence all the rest of the way to Shimonoseki there were numerous exposures of brown crumbling granite. While waiting for a favorable tide to cross the strait, I went on a pleasure excursion to Ichinomiya a league or more to the northeast among hills a couple of hundred feet high, and found the brown crumbling granite here and there all the way. From Shimonoseki we crossed the strait of a league in width to Dairi, in Buzen, on the Island of Kiushiu, seeing many exposures apparently of the same brown crumbling granite on the low hills to the north east of tho town. From Dairi we went westerly to Kokura, a league and a half, along the seashore, with a level road most of the way, but passing over the side of a low hill soon after starting, where was exposed hard, dark brown Kamoiko- tan shales. Just beyond, there were exposures of fist and even head size pebble rock with hard feldspathic pebbles. Continuing westward from Kokura over gently rolling 108 ground without; rock exposures, within a league or so we entered Chikuzen and came to an exposure of the head size pebble rock again, and immediately after that to large blocks of black slate or shale at the village of Ookura. Thence we went westerly over and among low hills with exposures of brown crumbling granite to Kurosaki, three eagues from Koknra ; and then- south-westerly another league through a like country with like exposures io Uenohara, Just beyond that village there was an exposure or two of coal rocks, dark gray shales with thin seams of rather rotten black slate and slight traces (about an eighth of an inch in thickness) of black shining coal. But the greenish brown and reddish crumbling granite and granitic sand and brown earth quickly recurred, and in a few hundred yards were followed by hard blackish Kamoi- kotan slates ; and then with occasional brown granitic sand and earth the road reached Koyanose in a pretty wide alluvial flat at the side of a small river. Thence southerly though the plain in about a league we reached the Ootate coal mine at Shimma in the village of Naogata, at a small hill, where a gray, coarse granular limestone is quarried for building stone. The limestone contains seve- ral minerals : much calcite in white crystalline grains, some parts impure with greenish gray, some grains of limpid quartz, some of chalcedony and some small black specks containing magnetite. The small hill runs north- west and south-east with a gap through which the road passes, and within a score of yards of which on either side of the road are all the mines. The quarry is on the north-east side of the hill and the mines are on the south-west, with a north-east dip of about 15 degrees, it is said ; so that the coal passes below the limestone, at least 45 or 50 feet below, it is said. On the south-western side of the hill at an exposure of the granular limestone I saw one dip of 9 N. 30 E. The following is the coal section downwards as it was given to me at the mines : 109 ft, While clay 45 to 50.0 Coal ( Ynmabtiri) 2.5 Clay 4.0 Coal (Suita) 2.5 Black slate 3.0 Coal (Kauknu) 4.0 Sand 1.0 Coal (Five Foot) 5.0 Slate 0.4 Coal (Kusaisbi) 2.5 Black slate '. .1.5 Coal (Saramai) 1.5 Black slate 2.0 Coal 2.0 White clay 13.0 Gray (grit ?) 2.0 Coal (Three Foot) 3.0 Slate 1.0 Coal (Oni or Banjita) 1.0 Gray shales, with no other coal below... 101.9 The section when drawn and compared with a drawing of the section at Ariho in the Funaki coal field has so much resemblance in spite of some differences of thickness that it seems pretty certain that the two fields were once connected. The only two beds worked at Naogata are the Five Foot and Three Foot, twenty-five feet apart (some culled the distance 35 feet, and it is doubtless variable, as at Ariho) ; corresponding therefore very well to the Nakabori and Chiugoo there both in relative thick- ness, distance apart and apparently in their superiority to the other beds in most of which there is likewise a good correspondence. The little coal left lying about the mines did not look very good, as it was rather small and dirty ; 110 but a very good specimen was picked out for me, apparently better than the average. The Three Foot coal is the only one worked at present ; but there is an old slope, ten fathoms deep with a dip of 20, on the Five Foot, worked from August, 1877, to January, 1878. There are three slopes of about the same steepness on the Three Foot bed and, besides an .abandoned shaft, a new one at which they had when we passed lately set a seven horse power steam engine at work pumping water. Owing to water in the down-cast shaft and consequently too bad air in the mine for the lamps to burn well I did not enter. The abandoned shaft is 36 feet deep, the new one 50 feet ; the principal slope is 20 fathoms deep, reaching the coal in 15 fathoms. The working had been a suspended on account of water from June until within few days. The mining is done with narrow long pillars six or even only four feet wide and bords or stalls 20 or even 30 feet wide ; and the pillars are taken out after reaching the limit of the lease, which is only one of 2,000 tsubo (or If acres). There are 30 miners employed Gunpowder is not used. The coal is brought out of the slope in a pair of baskets at the ends of a shoulder pole, the pair holding one picul. The miners are paid 2^ cents for cutting one picul, or about 40 cents a ton. The coal is carried from the mine on horseback about 360 yards to the river bank at a cost of one cent a picul ; and thence goes by boat seven leagues to Wakamatsu, (at the mouth of the small bay into which the right hand mouth of the river empties) at a cost of 2J cents a picul. The boats carry 100 to 140 piculs each, according to the varying depth of the water in the summer. The coal is mined in the summer as well as in the winter. They said that this was the only mine in Chikuzen that had asteam engine ; but that there was one other at Akajr, up an easterly branch of the river, in the edge of Buzen. They Ill- said too that the mines about lidzuka (Chikuzen) had all been abandoned on account of getting (oo deep below water level ; and that the mines at Naogata were the only ones at work in Chikuzen. From Shiimmi we kept on a league and a half in a south-westerly direction (below the coal therefore) up the left bank of the river through the somewhat narrow alluvial plain with high hills or mountains on the left, along the boundary of Buzen, and low hills on our right, and occasionally close to us, with exposures of greenish brown or bright red crumbling granite or granitic earth, or possibly shales of the lower part of the coal formation, to the village of Kodake, two leagues short of lidzuka. Near Kodake there were heaps of coal at boat landings along the river bank ; but the quality seemed poor and dirty, and it was said to be sulphury and to fall readily into powder. Lime is used as a fertilizer near Ko- dake, and it is said to come from Akaji and from hnlf a league northerly from Naogata. Our south-westerly course along the bank of the river in the alluvial flat con- tinued yet a league or so further, to Koobukuro ; and on the way we saw at boat landings numerous coal heaps all of the same poor appearance. A few hundred yards above Kodake, we passed near a coal mine on our right that was not at work, but was said to be four or five fathoms long with five or six feet in thickness of coal. There were said to be mines in the neighborhood 600 yards long, but none of them now at work. It was said too that the coal that it paid to work was found only here and there in spots, though the beds were much more widespread; and that granite occurred here and tlfere excluding the coal forma- tion. Coal was said to be mined at Aida about a league west of the river, and to be richer in bitumen than the other coal of the region, and to come from the Kankau Five Foot, probably the same as the Five Foot Bed of 112 Naogata. The coal of this region is used for salt boiling near Mitajiri, and is not reckoned good enough for steamer use. Near Koobukuro we passed a small, idle coal mine, and an exposure of gray and brown soft sand rock with coal slate. Leaving the river there we continued in a south- westerly direction, and entered anrDng low hills, passing in about a league, at Igisu, another small abandoned coal mine and within a' mile of the Hauase coal mine, which some said was not actually yielding coal but was getting into working order. It had been opened in the spring of 1878, and worked until August, and now with a new slope of eight fathoms in length they were baling out the water. The dip was represented to be 45 north-easterly. The coal bed worked is also called the Kankan Five Foot, and said to be in two layers, one of three feet above and the other of two feet below separated by 0.8 ft. or 1.0 ft. of white soft clay. Over it is poor coal four feet, thick ; and ten feet below is the Eight Foot Bed (said to be all coal); below which are three feet of black slate; and below that again 2J ft. of poor coal overlying white clay. The Eight Foot coal is only used for salt boiling, and is said to be sold at Asliiya (at the left hand mouth of the river) for $11.15 the hundred piculs (or $1.87^ a ton); and the freight to Ashiya costs $4; of which $2.70 are for the carriage on horseback to the river, and $1.30 thence by boat to Asliiya. To Wakamatsu the freight costs a dollar more the hundred piculs. It was expected that the Kan- kau Five Foot coal of Hanase would bring $16 or $17 the hundred piculs (or about $2.80 a ton). The mine was said by its owner to be yielding already 50 or 60 piculs (or 3J tons) a day, with about 20 men at work. North- west of Hanase and Aida there are no coal mines worked, and we saw nothing more of the productive part of the Chikuzen and Buzcn coal field. 113 The coal leases of the field are scattered over a space of about 220 square miles, of which 160 square miles are in Chikuzen and 60 in Buzen. It is evident however that not by any means all that space is underlain by productive coal beds ; perhaps not one-half of it is, possibly not even a quarter. The coal beds seem to dip rather steeply so that they quickly reach a depth too great for the methods of pumping hitherto chiefly used, and perhaps become too deep even for any working ; and the ancient granitic rocks enter the field here and there; so that the portions of the two beds of passable quality hitherto found workable are only comparatively small scattered patches. Reckoning eight feet in thickness of workable beds, and judging by the result of the measurements of our surveys in Yesso, there may be about five hundred million tons of workable coal in the whole field; but that is scarcely better than a very rough guess. It is very well worth while and greatly to be wished that a careful topographical and geological survey should be made of the whole field, not merely to determine the quantity more precisely, but to ascertain and record fully the facilities for mining and every feature connected there with. What has already been said of the advantage there would be in using tramways and steam- pumps and conveniences for loading and unloading in the Funaki coal field applies of course with at least equal force here. Even common waggon roads by reducing seven- eighths the present cost of land carriage of the Hanase coal, for example, would save $2.36 on every hundred piculs, or about forty cents a ton, iu itself a handsome profit. From Igisu, we kept on south-westward soon joining the main lidzuka and Fukuoka road, and crossing low and not very steep hills, with exposures here and there of crumbling brown granite (which sometimes contained red and greenish brown pebbles and fragments), as far as 114 Sakanoshitn, some two leagues and a half from Kodake. Thence rising steeply and passing exposures of talcscliist (about vertical with a north-north-easterly strike), brownish slate and dark brown shales we crossed a pass about 750 feet above the sea, with exposures of greenish black serpentine; and then without much descent traversed rolling ground fora league with -exposures of brown and dark brown, crumbling, schistose felsite or hard shale, un- til we crossed another pass about 1,000 feet above the sea, near which talcscliist was exposed again and, a little further on, some blocks of serpentine. Thence descending westward within a league, near Kido, we came to many exposures of greenish gray serpentine in place, which con- tinued for nearly a league to Sasnguri. From that town the road went Avesterly three leagues to Hakata and Fukuoka through a very gently descending or level flat that soon became very wide after passing mountains of a thousand feet in height. About a league from Sasaguri we passed a small hill on our left with an exposure of pale green limestone, weathering brown, probably of the coal bearing formation. Near it we saw at houses small heaps of very dirty looking, powdery, slaty, sulphury coal, that was said to have been brought from an old coal mine a few hundred yards to the left, which had been abandoned for fifty years. There is no coal known thereabouts that is worth working; but the existence of its traces has given the impression that the Chikuzen productive coal field had a very wide extent. Soon thereafter we met with brown granitic sand and earth, but there were no more exposures of rock in place. At the Fukuoka Prefecture we saw small pieces of poor-looking copper pyrites and tin ore from near Sasa- guri; but the mine is not now worked, though green vitriol is made. We were also given a printed Japanese copy of a report on the Qhikugen and Buzeri coal by Mr. 115 F. A. Potter, the mining engineer of the Miike Coal mines. It appears to be a valuable paper, and I hope to print a translation of it along with our special reports, as lie lias kindly assented to our doing. On our leaving the large double town of Hakata and Fukuoka, we were shown in the western edge of the latter, at Nishishimmachi, perhaps a league from the Pre- fecture a place where soft brown crumbling sand rock, looking like crumbling granite, was exposed, and where at a lower level coal was dug for less than a year in 1874 or 1875. The dip was about level. It is said the coal bed was half a foot or three quarters thick and not of very good quality, falling to powder in the rain (on account of the decomposition of the iron pyrites); but the roof was firm. The working, with a slope and below water level } was abandoned because it did not pay ; and clearly it could not be profitable. Going thence westerly over level ground near the sea- shore, within a league we passed some low hills on our right where there were exposures of a greenish gray, hard grit with level dip, probably also a part of the coal formation. Thence westerly through a plain, or among very low sand hills for more than a league there were no exposures; but then along the seashore at the foot of low hills there were many exposures of crumbling gray and brown granite for more than half a league to Iinajiku. The road then ran westerly through a plain without rock exposures for a couple of lecagues, with views of Henasan or Chikushifuji, nearly before us on the right, a mountain perhaps a thousand feet high with volcanic shape. Then the road went still westerly by the side of or over low hills, crossing the neck of a pretty large peninsula, and then at times near the seashore, with many exposures of crumbling brown granite, in places holding hornblende, until we entered the province of Hizen; and at length with 116 a couple of leagues of flat ground near the sea we reached the large town of Karatsu ten leagues from Imajiku. At the south-west end of the peninsula just mentioned at Ootozaki in Keya village, there is said to be a very fine cliff of columnar volcanic rock with columns more than 200 feet high and with a cave among them accessible to small boats but never yet explored to the end. Having read that porcelain was made at Karatsu we made inquiries about it; but learifed that none at all was made no\v, and that no fine pieces ever were made there, though formerly they did make coarse crockerv. From Karatsu we travelled southward up the left bank of the Matsura river that was very wide (perhaps 600 yards) at first but very shallow. Even at the mouth it is said to be too shallow for large junks. The land on either side of the river was at first a wide flat with views of the conical Kagami mountain perhaps 800 feet high to the south-east and the conical higher Yoshidake beyond ; but in less than a league we came to low hills on our right with many outcrops of light gray and light brown crum- bling granite, which continued until we came within about half a mile of Tokusue, three leagues from Karatsu. Then we met with exposures of light brown coarse sandrock or grit, partly filled with pea size pebbles, and having a level dip. A few score yards further on, the saudrock was shaly. I turned aside there from the main road, and visited the Takeari small coal mines about a mile to the south-west, though as it was a holiday they were not at work. The dip there is 21^ N. 55 W. The section downwards is as follows : ft. Shales, said to be some 8.0 Coal, called 0.8 Shales, said to be about 7.5 117 Firm sandstone ("whetstone") exposed about 4 ft. said to be 12.0 Rotten coal 0.1 Coal, called 0.8 or 0.9, but measures ... 1.3 Shales with no coal known below,exposed 2.5 32.2 The upper coal is not worked now, though opened by a short slope. The lower coal is said be all caking coal. It is in three layers of which the upper is called 0.45 ft. with a smooth dividing surface below, and is of good quality, though weathering dull; the middle is called 0.15 ft., and is sulphury, with copperas; and the lower layer is 0.3 ft., the best of all, very firm and bright and with small grains of amber. The bed has been worked with a slope for three years, and there is said to be room in the mine for 300 miners. There appear however to be but ten men commonly at work, five digging and five carrying out and they produce in all 75 loads (of l piculs each), or 93J piculs (or 5 T 6 ^ tons) a day. The digger and the carrier are paid equally, each eight cents a day, besides 0.7o shoo of rice, worth 4.8 cents, and 0.25 shoo of sake, worth 3 cents, and 0.25 shoo of oil worth 12J cents, (to be burnt in a shell); and tools (picks) are furnished free at a cost of 3.2 cents (or more) in 20 days to each man. Gunpowder is not used. The coal is holed under across the whole breast, without any hole at the side, and broken down. The -gangways are 2.2 ft. high; and the bords 1.3 or 1.5 ft. high and 30 ft. square ; and the pillars are six feet wide and 30 ft. long. The coal is drawn out in shallow bamboo baskets 1.75 ft. wide by 1.9 ft. long on iroushod wooden runners 0.4 ft. apart, holding a picul and a quarter. At Tokusue I was told by the owuer'a son about the Hieda mines, the principal ones then working in the 118 neighborhood, though idle that day. They are two-thirds of a league from Tokusite, up the south- westerly branch of the river which forks below that town. The section down- wards at the mines, at Idenotaui, is said to be as follows : ft. Whetstone, about 8.0 Coal 0.6 Whetstone, averaging about 12.0 Coal (Ichimnimon) .... 0.8 Slate 0.6 22.0 There is no coal known above or below the section "iven. G The Ichimaiinon is the coal worked at Takeari. At Hieda, there is no slope but a level drift, and consequently no trouble from water. The mine is about 120 fathoms long. The number of miners is very variable ; but there are ten men at work on the average, five cutting coal and five drawing it out; and they produce all together about 70 piculs a day. The men are paid 11 cents for each basket or sledge load of 1^ piculs; and the rice, sake and oil taken are subtracted from that price. The coal is carried from the mine on horse back about 500 yards to the boat landing on the river, at a cost of $2.50 for the 100 piculs. Thence it goes by boat to Midzushima (at the mouth of the Matsura river opposite Karatsu) for $1.10 the 100 piculs from Hieda, $1.20 or $1.30 from more distant land- ings and about $0.90 from Takeari. The mines are worked summer and winter. The Hieda mines are the largest mines near Tokusue, except the Kishiyama, "which are in fact the only large ones." The Kishiyama mines are two miles from Tokusue up the main, south-easterly, valley on the road to Saga. They had been abandoned more than a year, owing to hav- ing become too deep under water, with which it was still 119 full; but they were about setting up a steam engine to pump it. The section there as given me at Tokusue is as follows, from above downwards : ft. Poor coal including slate and bone 1.2 Shales, some 12 or 13 feet 12.5 Good coal 0.9 Whetstone 8.0 Coal (Three Foot) 3.0 Whetstone .15.0 Coal, Five Foot (including 1.5. ft. or 1.6 ft. of slate and bone) 5.0 45.6 The Five Foot bed with 3.4 or 3.5 ft. of coal is the one mainly worked. The Three Foot Coal is probably the same bed as that worked at Hieda and Takeari. In the whole region about Tokusue there are, it is said, 400 or 500 coal mines, and some of them at Iwayaguchi about three leagues up the south-east valley from Tokusue yield 200, 300 or even 400 piculs a day; and are said to have three coal beds, as follows, from above downwards" ; the Ichimaimon about 1.0 ft.; the Nimaimon about 1.1 ft.; and the Sam- maiinou, about 1.5 ft. or 1.6 ft. It is estimated that on the average, summer and winter, 5,000 (perhaps even 6,000) piculs of coal a day or 150,000 piculs a month (say 107,000 tons a year) go to Midzushima from the whole valley; an average of about 2,000 tons a year from each mine. The coal mines of the whole Matsura valley appear to be scattered through a space of about 27 square miles ; and reckoning the thickness of the workable coal beds as averaging three feet in all, and judging, as before, by our Yesso averages, there may be at a rough guess something like 25 million tons of workable coal in the whole valley, 120 though it would hardly be safe to count with much confi- dence on so large an amount. The beds are mostly very thin indeed ; hut owing to the softness of the underlying shales and to the firmness of the roof and to the facilities for shipment have been found workable at a thickness of one foot and a third, and nominally even less than one foot, at least for mines above -drainage level and not very deep from the surface of the ground. It is evident that it must be very desirable to improve the means of carrying the coal from the mines to the river, and the means of loading and unloading ; to replace the bamboo hand pumps by steam ones, on the so called Five Foot bed at least ; and especially by a thorough geological and topo- graphical survey to lessen to the utmost the uncertainties that are unavoidably connected with underground work. It is possible that with the maps of such a survey tram- roads might be planned that would conveniently carry the coal of several neighboring mines to the river, or even a railroad that would carry the whole product of the valley to a sea port more cheaply and satisfactorily than can be done by the small boats that require so much loading and reloading, before the coal finally reaches the hold of sea going vessels. From Tokusue we travelled up the south-westerly nar- row valley and between and across low hills" that on the road were about 200 feet above the sea, to Imari at the head of a long narrow north-west and south-east bay. There were numerous rock exposures along the road or near it, mostly of greenish sand rock weathering brown, probably a part of the coal formation ; but about the end of the first league there was gray and brown crumbling granite, or most likely similar sand rock to that at Fukuoka of grani- tic materials, and like the other harder sand rock with a level dip. After that there were brown shales and a greenish grit both also level, and no doubt likewise of the coal formation. 121 From Trnari I went southerly three leagues and a half to Arita, across low hills with a pass 300 feet high just short of Arita and witii numerous exposures of greenish brown and light brown shales probably of the coal forma- tion, and with moderately steep northerly dips near the pass. A league or so short of that however there were high dark brown cliffs on the side of the mountain some distance to the west that may have been of Old Volcanic rocks ; for Mr. Adachi who passed to the west of that mountain (Kaigashidake) picked up at the foot of one of its spurs some pieces of obsidian and was told that it was abundant on the mountain. He also thought that the mountain next to the west and nearOogi was likewise volcanic. At Oogi itself however coal is dug, as I learned, though not much, perhaps with ten men at work and with a bed about a foot thick. Also at Nakazato, a league or so to the north, coal is dug; but more important mines are those of Kubara, a league or more north-westerly from Nakazato, and there the coal is about a foot and a half thick. There are coal mining lenses also for three or four leagues still further to the north-west near the shore of the bay and beyond Imabuku, the principal town of the region. The extent of the whole of that productive coal field may therefore be nineteen square miles, and if the coal averages 1.2 ft. in thickness, the whole amount, estimating in the same rough way as before, might be six millions tons; but it would hardly be safe to consider so much of such a very thin bed as really workable. On the south-west side of the same peninsula with that field, and nearly adjoining at the south-east end, there are also coal mining leases scattered through a space of about 24 square miles ; which reckoning at the same rate, might contain about eight million tons of such thin coal. At Arita nearly 300 feet above the sea I visited tlie large kaolin quarry or combination of eight or 122 ten quarries, in all about half a mile long from south- west to north-east, which furnishes the material for all the Arita porcelain. The kaolin would seem to he a part of the Old Volcanic rocks, which clearly are closely adjacent on the south also. The kaolin accordingly has no visible quartz grains, which are rare (if occurring at all) in the Old Volcanic rocks; lAit which could hardly fail to he found (as they are in other parts of Japan) in kaolin derived from' the Kamoikotan porphyries or granites everywhere so rich in quartz. The kaolin is in general while, compact and amorphous and contains almost every- where numerous grains or minute cubical crystals of iron pyrites, which decomposing has in some spots given a yellow rusty color to the surface ; hut at some points it is indistinctly in fine, flat layers like some of the neighboring grayer and less altered Old Volcanic rocks to bo mentioned further on. When the kaolin is broken into fine grains it is gritty and rough feeling and looks much as if it might be the result of the decomposition of pumice beds such as are to be seen here and there in southern Yesso, though ut Arita the pumiceous structure is no longer visible even with a pocket lens. The quality differs at different points throughout the quarries and is classified as superior and inferior porcelain clay and (at two places) glaze ; but nearly the whole space seems to be filled with at least in- ferior clay, and the quantity therefore appears to be prac- tically inexhaustible. The workings are not yet below water level or are only very slightly so in certain spots* and even there are far from being being below the water level of the whole place. The yellow rusty color is gener- ally very superficial, and forms in wet weather, and con- tains alum. The color is harmless, as it is removed by the preliminary washing and levigation, and so are the grains of pyrites in the underlying u'nrusted stone. A quarter of a mile west of the main quarries there are two 123 small ones of rather ferruginous fine-layered clays (without alum) that give light yellow and green glazes. All the quarries are the property of the village of Arita (about 6,400 inhabitants), and the clay is paid for (exclusive of carriage) at the rate of four-tenths of a cont for every half load of 85 catties of superior and inferior alike ; but the glaze, including the green-glaze, is paid for at double that rate. The superior and inferior clay are in using mixed, say half and half which is a very good mixture or ^ su- perior and f$ inferior, also a very good mixture. In one day 34 piculs are dug in all on the average, including the green-glaze. About seven-tenths of the whole amount arc used in Aritn, and the other three-tenths are carried to the seven neighboring villages of Ookawachiyama, Ichino- seyama, Hiroseyama, Kuromot.oyamn, Oobooyama, Nan- gawara and Hokaoyama. The carrying is done on the backs of bullocks or horses, 170 catties to a load for either, and costs two cents a picul to the Arita furnaces, and on the average about five cents a picul to those other villages. The stone at Arita, for example, is first pounded fine by a water power trip hammer (at the end of a spoon shaped lever), two piculs in a day ; is passed through a bamboo sieve with meshes of about three-sixteenths of an inch; is stirred up, 140 catties at a time, four times a day, with water in a vat ; and then the muddy water is dipped out and allowed to settle in two or three hours in another vat, yielding in three days 100 piculs of good fine, plastic ma- terial, twice washed. The coarse part left in the first vat is four-tenths of the whule, and is completely thrown away. Nothing is mixed with the levigated clay ; but with the levigated glaze the ashes of the Yusunoki are mixed, sometimes half and half, sometimes -f^ ashes and /^ glaze. When the clay has been moulded on wheels, and sometimes pared on the wheel with a knife when dry, it undergoes the first baking (suyaki) for 24 hours with 124 a fire of 20 piculs of pino wood (matsn) in a small oven attached to each pottery house. Then the pieces are painted, if at all, with blue (socalled sometsuke) ; then the glaze, either white or green (socalled seiji), is put on; and then there is a second baking (jiyaki ), which is the main one and lasts several days. The kiln (called nobori) is a very large one with a number of ovens, up to 22 and averaging 12 to 15, climb- ing up the natural slope of a hill side, the lower ones rather small and the upper ones large, with an average size of eight yards crosswise of the kiln by five yards by three yards high, and with a door about two feet high and half a foot wide to each oven, and a hole about half a foot in diameter for the smoke to come out of. The fire is kindled first in the lowermost oven after the pieces have with five days' labor been carefully stowed there (the finest pieces in rough earthenware cases), and it burns for 24 liours, consuming 100 piculs of pine wood. The flames or smoke and gas pass meanwhile through two or three of the next upper ovens; while still further on they may be shut off by paper pasted over the flues, and the packing of the fresh pieces may be going on. When the fire has burnt a day in the lowermost oven, that oven is closed, and a like fire with a like amount of wood is kindled in the next one; and so on day after day to the top of the kiln. The un- packing is not begun until the end of 20 days and takes for each oven only half a day or a day. If more elaborate painting in red or other colors or gilding is desired, it is now put on and produces the fancy colored or brocaded, the so called saishiki (with or without gilding) or nishiki (with gilding); and after that there is a third baking in a carefully closed case in a small oven for 24 hours with a fire of ten piculs of wood. There are in Arita 80 houses that make pottery; and twelve kilns (nobori), which are owned by ten or twelve 125 different men, but arc hired in turn by all the others. In the other seven villages named there are about 100 houses that make porcelain, and an average of about two nobori to each village; with an average of 12 to 14 ovens to each nobori. There are in Arita about ten houses that do fine work; and there is one at Ookawachiyama. At Ookawa- chiyama they use too a glaze found there that produces the crackle (hibiyaki). It is of two colors, white and pale green. The baking is the same; but the crackle takes place on removing the pieces warm to the hand from the kiln; and after the crackling they are rubbed with char- coal which enters the minute cracks in the glaze and makes them black. Such crackle is sometimes laid in spots upon a ground work of dark brown terra cotta, as, for example, a cloud in a picture. Some of the colors used at Arita are imported from China or from Europe; and there is a great variety of them. Each house, either at Aril a or in the other villages, employs on the average about thirty men (including a few women): ten for moulding with the wheel; ten for painting; one kilnman; and nine for digging and carrying. They are paid ac- cording to the work done from 15 cents to a dollar a day, averaging perhaps 25 cents. The pine wood costs at Arita 25 cents a load of 150 catties. The ashes for the glaze come from Satsuma and cost $3 a bag of five karnme or $6 for enough for one oven full. The finished por- celain both from Arita and from the other villages is mostly carried to Imari where it is packed for carriage and sent to market by sea ; and is therefore often called Imari porcelain, though none is made there. It is almost all carried to that port in baskets by men, as the road is rough; but some of the inferior articles go on packhorses. The carriage from Arita by men costs 12J cents a picul. It is obvious that even a common waggon road would greatly lessen the cost of carriage of the fuel and of the 126 clay, but still more that of the finished ware by enabling it (o be packed safely in large crates at the kilns instead of at Imari. As the whole saving on the carriage of the porcelain alone would amount to more than two dollars a day, or say to $800 a year, that together with the manifold other advantages of such a road to all the inhabitants of the region would amply justify th.e expense of the con- struction. Perhaps the cheapest plan would be to carry the levigated clay, to some place on the seashore and bake it there. Although the working of the quarries is com- paratively a very simple matter, yet no doubt the infor- mation and increased certainty of methods that would arise from a thorough geological and topographical survey of the whole place would well repay its small cost. From Arita we went southerly over another low pass through Hasami and thence through a little valley with a flat half a mile wide to the sea near Kawatana, about three leagues and a half. Just after leaving Arita we passed blocks of light brown soft tufa containing pebbles of pumice, and were told that it had been quarried close by to the south* east. A few score yards further on and for a few hundred yards there were exposures of gray schistose trachyte pro- phyry containing a few grains of glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase) and a little dark brpwn mica. The schistose structure comes from very thin flat layers of slightly different composition. In some parts the rock is almost white and there it closely resembles the kaolin of the quarries. Close beyond these exposures and only half a league from Arita, we found, in Toya village, bits of gray and black perlite; and a quarter of a mile beyond them in the bed of a brook and by the road side there were a couple of exposures of the hard gray sand rock, weathering brown, of (he coal formation with a level dip; and exposures of similar light brown, but shaly, level dipping rock were frequent near the pass a few hundred 127 yards further on. They were however interrupted for a short space by dark gray and blackish gray shales with a dip of some 20 northerly, but probably of the same forma- tion. Then as far as Hasami there were exposures of the brown weathered sand rock with a level dip. From Hasami to near the mouth of the valley and the seashore in the limits of Kawataua (about two leagues) there were a few more exposures of the sand rock, and here and there large blocks of Old Volcanic rock. Without entering the main village of Kawatana I turned eastward along the seashore crossing some low hills; and meeting at first with exposures of coarse, soft, crumbling gray tufa pebble rock weathering brown with head size pebbles of andesite con- taining glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), augitc and traces of magnetite in a slightly vesicular dark gray matrix with the vesicles thinly lined with a white soft mineral that is apparently neither a zeolite nor chal- cedony, nor calcite. Like exposures occurred all the way, over low hills along the seashore, to Sonogi four leagues from Hasami and after we had passed a small flat there at the mouth of a little valley they ac- curred again within half a league, and were closely follow- ed by an exposure of Old Volcanic rock of probably similar composition, but with the glassy triclinic feldspar crystals and grains in a dark gray fine grained matrix. Thence onward still over low hills near the seashore to Matsubara three leagues from Sonogi the exposures were fewer and were mostly' of light brown tufaceous shales, passing how- ever sometimes into the coarse pebble rock. From Mat- subara south-south-easterly near the sea shore two leagues to Oomura there was a broad alluvial flat. From Oomura the road ran south-easterly over high rolling ground and then across a pass that I guessed to be 700 feet high (as both our aneroids were at that time out of order) three leagues to Eishoo in the outskirts of Isahai. There were 128 first some exposures of the tufa pebble rook, then of gray and brown shales apparently tufaceous, containing minute grains of feldspar and of magnetite ; but at the end of a league there was an exposure of buff, decomposed andesite that con tained glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), magnetite, decomposed pyroxene and empty casts of augite crystals in a yellowish white matrix of soft decomposed feldspar or kaolin. Thence across the pass there were exposures of buff and gray shales and soft sand rock pro- bably tufaceous. From Eishoo, the road went south- westerly four leagues among low hills, and over rather level ground with similar exposures of gray and light brown, or buff, level dipping shales apparently tufaceous to Yagami on the south-eastern shore of the peninsula. On the way however at a couple of leagues from Isahai there was an exposure of hard, gray andesite containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), hornblende, augite and magnetite in a dark grayish green matrix ; and a league further on there was another exposure of hard, gray nndesite containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), augite and magnetite in a gray com- pact matrix. From Yagami the road continued nearly a league south-westerly along the seashore to Himi near low hills with exposures of buff and dark gray tufaceous shales sometimes with head size pebbles; and then going westerly over a remarkably rough, bad road crossed a pass perhaps 800 feet high and descended to Nangasaki, two leagues and a half from Yagami. All along the mountain road and near it there were numerous exposures or cliffs of hard, dark gray andesite, containing, for example, near the pass, glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase)' magnetite and grayish green pyroxene in a dark gray, compact matrix. At Nangasaki we were shown specimens of rocks and minerals from Hirato, Tsushima and the Gotoo Islands. 129 Almost the only pieces of any economical interest were coals from all three of those places and some kaolin from the Gotoo Islands. The coal from Hirato was good look- ing, black, shining, bituminous coal from Iwaya village in Matsuuragoori; but the thickness of the bed could not be given. The coal from Tsushima was partly a good look- ing anthracite from the seashore of Sago village in Kamia- gata District; and the bed was said to be about two feet thick, worked to a depth of twenty fathoms and near a great deal of volcanic rock, which had probably turned it to anthracite. There was another piece of very poor looking bituminous coal from Komoda village in Shimo- gata District in the same island; but the bed was only about a foot thick and not worked. The so called coal from the Gotoo Islands was merely a brownish black, carbonacous, heavy stone said to come from a bed about a foot thick, and evidently quite too poor to work even if it were thick. From the same Islands there was reddish brown and yellow vesicular lava that is used for making cement at the Nangasaki dock. From Tsushima (Shimoa- gnta District, Shimobari village) there was a poor looking specimen of copper pyrites from a very old abandoned mine, a hundred fathoms long, now full of water, and of unknown width of vein. From the same District, Ogata village, there was a still poorer looking specimen of like copper ore with iron pyrites, and it was said to have formerly been worked for silver to a length of twenty fathoms. FrOm Hirato there were specimens of serpen- tine, and from the seashore there, some magnetic iron sand* We were told about coal beds that had recently been found by boring at Matsushima, an island near the sea- coast, eight leagues north-west of Nagasaki; one bed eight feet thick and one four feet, of quality rather inferior to the Takashima coal. But no foreigner had witnessed the boring through the beds, and I do not know how ISO- experienced and trustworthy the borers may have been in the rather delicate matter of testing a coal bed in that way. We did not visit the celebrated Takashima coal mines at the month of Nangasaki harbor, as the owner had one or more foreign mining engineers in his service and so stood in no need of our advice, and as the government had already had reports upon the plaee from very competent men. From Nangasaki we went northerly across the neck of the north-western branch of the main peninsula, over a pass about 200 feet high to Tokitsu at the head of a large bay or salt water lake. We passed first many exposures of similar andesitic rock to those we had seen just before, but of a light gray color, decomposing and crumbling and containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), augite and magnetite in a gray fine grained matrix. Then there were exposures of gray and brown soft tufa shales and coarse pebble rock; and then, near Tokitsu, greenish and reddish gray slightly decomposing andesite, containing glassy triclinic feldspar (probably oligoclase), decomposing pyroxene, magnetite and pyrite in a fine grained grayish green or reddish matrix. From Tokitsu we went by boat eight leagues northerly across to Sonogi, the town we had recently passed through. On the way we had fine views not only of the celebrated volcano Onsengatake of the Shimabara peninsula to the south-east; but could distinctly perceive a very large somewhat ruined, volcanic outline to the mountains on our east, back of Matsubara, having their old crater apparently at Taradake, and including Kurogiyama northward. In passing along by land no such general outline had been made out. From the boat the mountain Kokuzooyama, directly in front of us beyond Sonogi, had somewhat less distinctly a volcanic outline. From Sonogi we went three leagues north-easterly across a pass about 600 feet high to Ureshino, passing 181 numerous exposures of the same coarse tufaceous pebble rock that we bad before seen near Sonogi; but near Ureshino there were exposures of gray and buff shales along with the pebble rock. At Ureshiuo I visited the hot spring and found its temperature to be 86 C. (2 Nov.) The water appeared to contain no sulphuretted hydrogen, and was said not to blacken silver. There was a snow- white deposit which seemed to contain lime, as it was said to. A great deal of gas (probably carbonic acid) bubbles up in the water. The yield of the spring was not easy to see, but seemed large and amounted perhaps to a cubic foot a second or 450 gallons a minute. It issues from the alluvium. Thence we went three leagues and a half northerly across two or three hills of a couple of hundred feet in height and over pretty level ground between to Takeo; passing on the way many exposures of light brown, ap- parently tufaceous shales, sometimes with pebbles. At Takeo we saw another hot spring with much frequented baths. The temperature at the nearest accessible point to the original spring, now covered up, about ten feet distant in the solid, gray, volcanic rock like that of Nangasaki, was 47 C. Gas (probably carbonic acid) rises in large bubbles in the water. There is a slight deposit of white sulphury slime; and silver blackens if kept in the water ubout ten days, though not in two or three days; showing the amount of sulphur to be very little indeed. The yield of the spring- is said to be 3 too (12 gallons) a minute. Thence north-easterly to Kitngata, a league and a half, the road lay chiefly in flat alluvial ground or over very low hills without rock exposures. Kitagata is at the northern edge of the north-western branch of the great plain at the head of the Shimabara Gulf. There was a little coal mined close behind the village street, but it has long been abandoned and is said to have been only about a 132- foot thick and of poor quality. The rock there is a light brown, rather coarse grit, with a dip about level. I went on northerly past these exposures a league and a half across a hill about 400 feet high to the small town of Taku, passing many exposures of greenish gray and brown, level dipping, shaly, soft, sand rock. The shaly rock has the peculiarity of containing large concretion-like nodules that peel off in concentric shells, and is therefore called "dumpling-stone" near Irnari, where it also occur- red. Taku again is in a plain; but passing one or two more exposures of light brown shales I went still north- ward a league among low hills to the coal mines of Hachinosu, with views of the conical, Old Volcanic look- ing Ameyama, a couple of thousand feet high some two leagues to the north-east. The Hachinosu mines are some 300 feet above the sea and near the head of a narrow valley between low hills with exposures and cliffs of gray and brown, nearly level dipping grit, similar to that seen between Tokusue and Irnari. From Hachinosu to Tokvtsue it is but little more than three leagues. The Hachinosn mines are the principal ones in the Taku dis- trict (so-called after the neighboring town of Taku just mentioned); and all the mines of any importance at all (not counting some very thin workings down stream) are in one mountain within a diameter of about two-thirds of a mile (ten choo). The next largest mine to Hachinosu is the Karidaui, then Enokibara, then Urakaridani, then Nitanoo. The dip at Hachinosu is said to be half a foot to the fathom, or nearly five degrees, north-west. The section as given to me is as follows, from above down- wards : ft. Very bad coal, 0.4 or 0.5 .., 0.4 Gray shales, 13.0 Poor coal, not mined 0.8 133 Shales ................................. 13.0 Icbimai ~( Coal, poorer than the Sammai ... 1.5 Shales ................. ................ 3.0 Sand rock, of variable thickness, about ........................... 10.0 Soft shales ........................... 13.0 Poor coal, left as roof ............... 1.2 . Best coal, mined ..................... 0.8 Sammai 4 Red soft slmles .................... OA 'Best coal ..... . ........................ 1.2 Gray slate ........................... 3.0 Sand rock, about ..................... 10.0 71.3 The upper 0.8 ft. coal, the Ichimai and the Sammai are evidently the Ichimai, Nimai and Sammai respectively of Iwayaguchi already mentioned just across the mountain in the Tokusue region. On comparing drawings of the different sections it is clear that the Sammai is the same as the Five Foot bed of Kishiyama near Tokusue already mentioned; and the Ichimai the same as the Three Foot bed there, and the same as the Ichimairnon of Hieda and Takeari. It is barely possible that the Five Foot bed may not be worked at Takeari and at Hieda, not because it is wanting but because lying at a depth 15 to 25 feet lower it may not have been discovered in a place where the beds are so level and the lower outcrops consequently so little exposed. But the lower beds may be wholly wanting on the northern edge of the field. On comparing the drawings it is also striking how well on the whole the Hachinosu section agrees with that of Naogata in Chiku- zen, given above; making the Hachinosu Sammai the same as the Sanjaku of Naogata, and replacing the great bed, so thick at Naogata, called in its various parts (only one of which appears to be coal of workable quality) the Kaukan, Five Foot, Kusaishi, Sammai and Shakunashi by 131 the Ichimai of Hachinosu; yet the total thickness and the number of completely separate beds is about the same. We have already seen that the Chikuzen section agrees well with that of Ariho, near Fuuaki, in Nagato. It is clear then that the Funaki, Buzen and Chikuzen, Karatsu and Taku fields were contemporaneous in formation and most likely once continuously united ; and it is highly probable that the other coal fields of Kiushiu already spoken of were once a part of the same great field though now detached. My own measurement of the Sammai at the mouth of one of the mines was as follows : Poor soft coal, not mined 1.7 Harder coal, mined, (called 0.4) 0.5 Good coal "0.8ft." 1.4 Soft shale 0.3 Good coal ("1.2 ft/') 1.0 4.9 Making the mined coal to be 2.9 feet in all ; though called 2.4 feet. But large lumps just mined showed the " 1.2 foot" layer to have a thickness of 1.28 feet of good coal besides 0.05 feet of slate at top and bottom ; and the "0.8 foot" layer to be 1.0 foot thick, all good coal ; and the "0.4 foot" layer to be O.o foot thick, making a thick- ness in all of 2.78 feet of workable coal. The coal from the Sammai at Hachinosu in great part looks well, with large lumps up to 1.5 feet in diameter. There is some amber in grains of pea and bean size ; and some thin plates apparently of gypsum, but no visible pyrites. The Sammai and the Ichimai beds are worked at Hachi- nosu and at all the other neighboring mines. The Karidani are the oldest mines and were begun about twenty years ago or earlier. The Hachinosu mines hare been worked eight years under the present lease ; but 185 there was mining before that under the Prince. There are two mines there on the Sammai with one mouth each; and one on the Ichimai, which however lias been worked out and abandoned. The roof is said to be quite firm, and to need but little propping, The mining is done with bords five fathoms wide and of variable length, say about forty fathoms ; and with pillars of the same length and about four fathoms wide, but they are also taken away afterwards. No powder is used. As the bed dips into the hill from the mouth of the mines there is much water ; and it is raised by forty tread-wheels, each one raising it 2-| feet, making a height of 100 feet in all in a length of about 200 fathoms. There is one man to tread each wheel with two shifts a day, or 80 men in all. There are besides about 60 miners including thirty cutters and thirty carriers. The coal is drawn out on basket sledges like those at Takeari near Tokusue, holding 120 catties and even up to two piculs. Children and women sometimes help in drawing out the coal cut by the head of their family. The coal is carried from the mines, all the way down grade, mostly gentle, except about 5 yards slightly up grade at one point, to the river at Yamasaki, two miles (30 choo), in two-wheeled carts pushed by men or young women over a road that has planks laid lengthwise for each wheel. The wheels arc 21 feet apart, 3.35 feet in diameter and made of boards, and have a thin rim of iron in short pieces. The body holds about six piculs with the large lumps piled on top about a foot and a half high. There are two thills ten feet long with a connecting horizontal cross-piece sixteen inches from the end and two short vertical cross pieces at the very end. The pusher inserts his neck be- tween the ends of the thills, which are there 0.7 feet iipart. At Vamasaki the coal is loaded on small flat-bot- tomed river boats, perhaps 15 feet long by three wide and 136 0.7 foot deep, and either carried direct to Suminoe at the river's mouth about 2-J leagues, or generally is transferred on the way into larger boats at Kugatsu, 1J leagues from Yamasaki. Some of the poorer, rusty-looking coal is coked at the mine by the miners, not by the mine owners, and the custom has existed for more than twenty years. The coking is done in heaps and -the coke is light, porous and good looking and for carriage is packed in straw bags of 13 catties each; The coal yields about 60 per cent, of its weight in coke. The coke sells for about 11 cents a picul, rather more than the value of the like weight of the raw coal it is made from, but less than that of the weight of good raw coal that would produce it. At Hachinosu about 8,000 picul s are mined monthly on the average, but more in winter than in summer, say 96,000 piculs a year. In the whole Taku district the yield is said to be 800,000 piculs (say 48,000 tons) a year. In a year about 6,500 piculs of coke are produced at Hachinosu. The best raw coal sells at Sumiuoe for $18 or $19 a hundred piculs ; and the carriage to Yamasaki costs on the average |3, thence to Kugatsu $2, and thence to Suminoe $1. The miners are paid three cents a picul of ccal delivered at the dump. The men who tread the wheels arc paid ten cents a shift. House room, but no food nor oil is given in addition, and food and oil are bought from the company's shop and subtracted from the wages. The coal leases of the Taku field are scattered through a space of about six square miles ; and reckoning the thickness of the two workable beds uear Hachinosu as together 4.3 feet and estimating in the same way as before there might be in all about seven million tons of workable coal in the field. But in the opinion of the present coal mine owners that would be an enormous exaggeration for they suppose their two beds to be workable only through a space about two thirds of a mile in diameter at most. 137 It is however not wholly impossible that the lower and best bod may yet ho discovered to underlie the thin bed worked at the mines down stream, and with such level bedding may have hitherto remained undetected on ac- couut of being generally or everywhere below water level and so with few or no outcrops. On the other hand it is possible that the lower bed there may be wholly wanting. Such a point could only be determined by a careful geo- logical and topographical survey, which would be a most desirable thing both for that and for the other valuable information it would no doubt give. It is evident too that the handsome profits of coal mining near Hachinosu would be still further increased by steam pumps or water- power pumps and by tramways both inside and outside of the mines. The outside tramways would be especially profitable because all the neighboring mines would make use of the same line throughout the greater part of its length. From Hachinosu I went down the valley south-east- ward past Yamasaki to Beppu, two leagues, already in a wide alluvial plain ; and thence easterly past some low hills through Ushidzn, and over the very wide plain at the north and north-east of the Shimabara Gulf to Saga, four lengues and a half, without any rock exposures. From Snga we went eastward still through the plain, and crossing the large Chikugo River, entering Chikugo Pro- vince and going south-eastward through the large town of Yanagnwa, went to the village of Miike, 9J leagues from Saga. The last league the ground was a little rolling, and there were exposures of brown earth apparently from crumbled granite. From Miike I turned aside for my own gratification to take a glimpse of the so-called Miike coal mines about a league distant^ at Oura near the little seaport of Yokotsu, which have already been des- cribed to the government in a valuable report (dated 4 138 April, 1876, but not yet published) by my able and accomplished friend Mr. J. Gr. H. Godfrey. Although (owing probably to sanguine views of certain variations in the thickness of the coal beds) some apparently rather exaggerated statements have been made by others, and even published, what I learned on the spot (without enter- ing the mines) fully confirmed his description, which is evidently a careful one, based on his own observation and measurements, except where the contrary is expressly mentioned. I take the liberty of quoting from a manu- script copy his account of the coal field and its beds, as follows : " The coal mines of Miike are situated in a tertiary coal basin which is limited on the east by a range of igneous rocks running nearly north and south ; on the north by a valley trending east and west from the village of Miike machi ; in the other directions by the sea. The total area of this coal basin is estimated at 24 square miles, of which the upper part, or 2,816 acres, form the concession belonging to the Miike coat mines. Of this area about 500 acres might be considered as already exhausted by former work- ings. It is stated that coal was discovered and worked in this district about 400 years ago. The general dip of the formation is between south-south-west and south-west and varies from two to three tenths of a foot per running fathom. Towards the sea the dip becomes more westerly, mid is nearly west at the sea shore, and much steeper, about five-tenths of a foot per fathom. Up to the present time four distinct layers or seams of coal are known to exist in this formation. The firsto r upper seam is the best and most extensively worked. Its average section is as follows : Sandstone Sandstone intermixed with coal. ..12 to 18 inches Coal, occasionally divided by 4 to 6 inches of stony coal 72 ,, 139 Shale mixed with coal 12 ,, Sandstone This coal is rather brittle, but of superior coking quality and consequently well adopted for the manufac- ture of gas and coke- An average sample taken from the seam yielded 0.2 per cent, of moisture, and the dried sample (212 F.) 9.7 per cent, of a yellowish white ash. ' About five to six feet of slate intervene between the upper and the second seam, and the following is an average section of the latter : Soft coal, rich in gypsum, not worAed...lO to 12 inches Coal occasionally divided by seams (up to 5) of bind, each varying from 1 to 3 inches in thickness. These seams usually appear when the coal bed is widening out 5 to 6 feet. Shale with coal 2 to 3 inches. Sandstone The character of this coal is entirely different from that found in the upper seam. It is considerably harder, free burning, nob caking, and richer in ash. An average ample taken from the seam yielded : Eastern portion Western portion of Seam. of Seam. Moisture 0.5 per cent. 0.2 per cent. Ash in dry (212F.)17.9 12.5 , violet. light gray. It has been qbservedby the Miikc miners that the quality of the first and second seams is improving towards the west, and it is interesting to note that this observation has been borne out by the result of assays as regards the second seam, from the eastern and western portions of which we have been able to collect average samples. " The third seam is found at about 20 feet in depth below the second, and consists on its outcrop of 1 to 1^ 140 feet of bad coal. No exploration has been carried on yet to prove its character at a lower depth. A lower, fourth seam, said to consist of about three feet of bad coal was worked in former times at a short distance to the north of the Umedani adit ; but, owing to the large quantity of water met with, these workings had to be abandoned, and have now caved in. The rock intervening between this and the third seam might be estimated to be at least 50 feet thick. u The outcrops of all the three upper seams can be traced on the road from the Umedani to the Ikuyama adit. Within a short distance from the latter to the east, nearly perpendicular outcrops of the first and second seams are to be seen, which as mentioned above have been lifted up here by the underlying igneous rocks (granite). Only the first and second seams have been and are worked at present in the Miike mines." On comparing a drawing of the section at Miike with the sections of Taku, Tokusue and Naogata the resemb- lance is sufficiently great to show pretty convincingly that the three upper Miike coal beds were once probably con- tinous with the beds of those other fields ; but the lower- most bed mentioned by Mr. Godfrey from hearsay evidence has nothing to correspond with it. If that bed be not the creation of an exaggerated tradition, and in reality perhaps merely a little black slate that has been neglected in the other sections, the measures at Miike would appear to be much thicker than in the more northern fields and the coal beds to have begun to form earlier. The section at Takashima near Nangasaki with four coal beds of seven, ten, five, and sixteen feet of coal in a thickness of 650 feet of rocks resting on 600 feet more of like measures, as given by Mr. Godfrey in his interest- ing " Notes on the Geology of Japan " (Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for August, 1878) differs still 141 far more remarkably from the sections of all the other fields in respect to the thickness and number of coal beds and the amount of measures generally. In regard to Ta- kashirna the public has not yet any means of judging from detailed maps and reports what may have been the diffi- culties in making out the section, and whether there may fairly be any reason to be in the slightest degree suspi- cious of the correctness of the conclusions arrived at, so difficult to account for satisfactorily in consideration of the wide discrepancy with so many other coalfields of Kiushiu. Since the date of Mr. Godfrey's report a steam winding engine of 70 horse power has been set at work at the Oura slope ; and at the time of my visit the output there was said to be about 100 tons a day. The government also has ten or eleven other smaller mines without engines which were said to yield all together about ninety tons a clay ; and was sinking a new shaft at Miisuyama to be 35 fathoms deep. The Oura slope is inclined perhaps 20. The coal is drawn out of it in waggons that hold seven piculs, running with iron wheels half a foot in diameter oil an iron track of 1 J foot gauge; and drawn by horses in the same waggons (four to a horse) on a light railroad to the port, Yokotsu, seven-tenths of a league distant. The coal from the small mines off the railroad line is carried in curts like those of the Taku region. In the mine at Oura there are, it is said, 140 tread-wheels for raising water each 1.0 to 1.3 ft., but they are commonly worked only one shift in tine day. There are at Yokotsu four coke ovens, combined in one mass nine paces square ; but at the time of my visit they were not making any coke there, though apparently a little was made at Umedaui. The mining of the coal of the upper bed is said to cost 4J cents a picul delivered at the slope waggons ; but the slack only four cents. The mining .of the coal of the other bed is easier and costs 3 T 8 e growing shallower, partly no doubt through the silt brought down by the rivers that empty into it, and partly perhaps by a gradual rising of the land. The sea along shore is so shallow that in many parts vessels of any size can come no nearer than a league and a half from land ; and as the tide rises twelve feet, the ebbing lays bare wide flats. It has long been customary to make dikes to enclose such flats in part, not to low-water mark, nor so as to require pumping ; and the laud so regained is called 152 shinchi. In three years it is possible to cultivate rice upon it, and it is very highly esteemed for -rice land ; but before that, it is not fit on account of the salt, though bar- ley is cultivated even then with success. The land has in that way grown seaward in many places half a lengue since the making of the maps on which all the maps down to the latest have been based. Even Kawajiri according to tradition and to the meaning of its name was formerly at the mouth of a river though now two leagues inland. On the coast of Tango somewhat similar land is made on a small scale ; but there it is by filling up with earth dug elsewhere. At one point in such made land in Higo, Kagamishinchi, while sinking a drive-well (probably therefore ten or fif- teen fathoms deep or less) the workmen found that gas issued which burned when kindled. The well was stop- ped up, and a report of the facts was made soon afterward to the Prefecture at Kumamoto, in the spring of 1878. The gas is no doubt just such as is often found in similar delta deposits, or in smaller quantity at the bottom of marshes, the result of the slow decomposition of organic matter among the alluvial beds ; and does not probably in- dicate the presence of any important body of oil. The old Japanese drive- well method is to force down an iron bar of 0.2 ft. in diameter until a water vein is reached, then to withdraw the bar and to put a bamboo tube in its place. In order to force down the bar ladders are spliced together and raised vertically to a great height, and held in place by guide ropes ; and then by a pully a number of men pull the iron rod up and let it fall repeatedly until the object is gained. Sometimes in clayey ground the bar cannot be removed ; and if a sbono be struck, the sinking has to be abandoned. The method is especially practised in the plain of Etchiu, near Toyama, where we saw in passing many bamboo tubes rising two 168 or three feet from the ground and delivering a constant stream of water from such wells. At one place we saw men splicing ladders which had already risen 30 or 40 feet high for the purpose of making a drive-well. A well of that kind in Etch in is said to cost only ten or even only five dollars. The method is said to ho practised also in the lower portions of Yedo. It the water does not rise above the surface the upper part of the well is made large like a common well, and does not differ in outward ap- pearance. Southward from Kumamoto and Kawajiri there are wide alluvial plains which are famous as yielding the second best quality of rice of all Japan, that of Kadzusa being the first. Over that plain and at times near the foot of the low hills at its inland edge I travelled southward ten leagues to the largo town of Yatsushiro by the main road although there is now a by-path over the made lands that is said to be a league and a half shorter. Soon after starting we had views of Koosadake to the south-east apparently by its rather fresh conical shape a volcano. Near the five league post from Kuinamoto we saw an exposure of pretty hard light brown rather fine grit passing below into reddish shale, apparently Kamoihotan rocks, with a dip of 50 south 40 east. A short distance beyond however the dark brown and gray tufaceous earth and sunken roads recurred; and at Ogawa, 1\ leagues farther, there was dark gray pumice, as at Kumamoto. Haifa league beyond that, in Oono village at a spot called Hitooyama, along the foot of the hills at the edge of the plain and a league or more from the seashore, there were a couple of ancient kitchen midden shell heaps, dug into and exposed to a height of from six to nine feet, and reaching to a height of some thirty feet from the lowest part of the exposure at the roadside. The deposit was mostly made up of two shells, a small oyster and an area, but there were a few broken 154 bits of old pottery, partly plain and partly ornamented with rude markings, nnd having small handles and tha curvature of a large pot. Several Avere found loose at Ilie bottom of the digging; but the pieces found in place were at 0.6 ft. and two feet, and about six feet from the surface of the ground. The men and women living near said that many human skulls and other bones and stone arrow heads had been found there, but had been thrown out upon the fields along with Hie shells ; and we could find only one bone, a part of a human thigh bone, and a splinter of an- other bone. There were many quartzite stones but none that had been worked. Near the point where the hones were said to have been most numerous there was a half buried, carved block of the soft, dark gray pumice, pro- bably a tomb stone, or vault cover, about seven feet long with a rough upper surface fashioned into a ring or eye at one point as if for lifting it up, and below cut into a con- cave cylindrical shape ornamented with six oblong square shallow panels in two rows. I have shown what I brought away to Prof. E, S. Morse, so well know for his kilclien midden researches, and he has since visited the place himself and examined it more thoroughly with a belter result. It seems highly probable that, although there are no other such heaps known in (his immediate neighbor- hood, many may be found along the shores of the Sliima- bara Gulf so well suited by its snailowness for the growth of edible shell fish, which were consequently no doubt at one time a very large part of the food of the neighboring inhabitants. About a league and a half short of Yatsushiro we passed a lime kiln, besides meeting before and after that with large blocks of bluish gray limestone and white marble. Just off the coast near Yntsushiro the island Shiroshima is said to be chiefly made up of snow-whilo marble, large blocks of which \ye saw near Yatsushiro, 155 and found to be of beautiful quality fit for the finest statu- ary. At Yatsushiro wo crossed the wide Kuma River ; and keeping on southerly through the alluvial plain came at the edge of it within a league to the small village of Kooda and the potteries there. The Kooda potteries claim to have been first established between 1592 and 1596 (Bunroku period). There are three houses or families with one, two and five, potters a- pieee, eight in all ; but there is only one kiln, climbing up the hillside, and containing eight ovens, and all toge- ther about ten fathoms long by an average width of about six feet, widening from about four feet at the lower end to about eight feet at the upper. Only two kilnfuls a year are baked. The pottery is partly plain, uncracklcd white and partly crackled gi'fty> and the gray is sometimes ornamented with white and with brownish black. The white pieces are slightly greenish in parts, owing it is said (o the ashes of the yusunoki wood used in its gluziug. The gray is made from clay brought from a point in Hina- gn about three quarters of a mile inland from the main village ; and the white is made from white stone brought from Shirato about half a league from the gray clay and from Hinagu village, which we passed through a league further on. For glazing the gray pieces oak (kashi) ashes are used, and come from Hinagu, Buiwa (northerly from Kooda) and Matsukumari. The pieces are baked twice and the painting is done before the first baking (suyaki). For the first baking a fire of 18 or 19 faggots of perhaps four catties each of pine (mntsu) twigs and leaves is burnt for about three hours successively in each oven from the bottom to the top, 24 hours in all ; and the pieces are after that left in the closed ovens about a day before removal. The glazing is then put on, and the main baking (lionyaki) takes place. Twenty-five faggots of about ten catties of pine wood (2.5 ft. in circumference 156 and about 1.8 ft. long,) are burnt for three hours in each oven successively from bottom to top, 24 hours in all. Then the ovens remain closed for about five days before the finished pieces are removed. The crackle of the glaz- ing on the gray takes place before the ovens are opened. A faggot of leaves and twigs costs about one cent, and one of wood two cents. From Kooda westerly along the edge of the plain at the foot of low hills on "our left to Hiuagu on the sea shore we saw but two or three rock exposures and they were of dark gray hard Kamoikotan shales. At Hiuagu we saw the hot springs, of which there were eight in number within a couple of hundred yards east and west, among the houses of the village street, and a ninth on the sea beach (Hama) a couple of hundred yards further on. The names, tem- peratures and roughly estimated yield each second (where visible) of the springs were as follows : Centigrade Gallons Harna 47 1J Aburaya 47 3 Iseya 47 little? Nakamachishinyu 45 little ? Motoshioya 45 little? Tsukiji, west 44 1 east ...43 H Honyu 42. little? Kamenoyowni or) 4]0 , Kadoshioya f '." Al hl The water is all of about the same quality, slightly sul- phury, but so very little so that silver blackens in it only in four or five days. At the Honyu some gas bubbles up now and then. The water issues from the alluvium. Going westward along the sea shore from Hiuagu we within a few hundred yards (near the 15 league post from Kurnamoto) passed exposures of egg and nut, hard Kamoi- 157 kotan pebble rock with white, gray and black quartzite uiul greenish gray felsitic pebbles. Three hundred yards further on there were hard, dark reddish brown Kamoiko- tan shales, dipping 45 south 10 east ; aud then the peb- ble rocks again and brown shales aud flags once more, and in another 300 yards at Hatoyarna, there was white kao- lin partly ferruginous in streaks looking much like that of Kudani in Kaga. Close by there was a kiln of about six ovens for terra cotta pottery, rather smaller than the Kooda kiln ; but its kaolin was said to be dug further up the hill to our left. Then quickly the Kamoikotan dark brown shales and pebble rock recurred with a hard greenish gray grit; and so past Shiratohalf a league from Hatoyamn, where there are two more kilns for still rougher pottery of which the clay comes from the same place. Near the 16 league post there were outcrops of very quartzose mica schist. Then going still south-west- ward among and across low hills, we passed a few out- crops of level bedded light brown (apparently Kamoikotan) sandrock, and dark brown hard shales; and a little short of the 17 league post met with exposures of light brown crumbling granite, soon followed however by dark brown and black shales. Half a league further on there were exposures of dark green and light greenish gray serpen- tine with talc schist weathered brown, near a pass some 500 feet high, and all down its further slope to the village of Tauoura at the 18 league post. Thence westerly, at first along the sea shore and afterwards among hills and over them to a height of about 850 feet with exposures of dark brown Kamoikotan shales and then brown flaggy sandrock or grit, we reached the town of Sashiki near the 20 league post. A league and a half up stream from Sashiki there is clay slate of which we saw a specimen at Kumamoto ; but it does not split very thin. Then in a league south-westerly we crossed a hill about 300 feet 158 high; with many exposures of the light brown grit and of the brown shales, with a dip near the summit of 70 south 10 east, 5 03 ^ i" ^ Tl^ f^:: > fc 5 > . oooo oooo o o o ooooooo o o di* P- S^-oS-^S- S- S S- i-^-^i-^-s-oSo^ i | SJ;;S*SgS " % M S5S!3S^5^i? P. OOOOOOOOO O O OOOOOOOOOOO ^j 8 rv^O O.OOOcO'Ni.ot^ O O o o oro-^co'.-rcoco i-i 1-1 i |ISas2IlS bb S cS ^ -0 .-'gj ' -S c .J . 2 ^ I! 1 iSlliiljSjJlMI I i ^ ^cS ^^ K a ^ " H M M g I i i . ^ 1 dll g ^ R ^ ft R R * a ^ S a 5 ^. O ^"H 3 "^ fcfi S ' ' " fl 3 1 g 1 J 3 ft lll" 8 1 5 1 i ? g J ft * % " 11^ 1 44 o ^ ^rsrpr^^S^^o ^ PH 1 " |3 P 1 " M '*' t - a S S a 3233S33?,?!?,?? S 241 REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING HOT SPRINGS, BY MESSRS. Ku WADA AND NISHIYAMA. " Nos. 1 -9. About six leagues west-north-west of Nikkoo, and about three leagues west of Lake Chiuzenji; within a length of 120 yards. All issue from very recent looking pumice. No. 7 boils up through a hole 1-| yards square in great quantity. The springs are said to be good for diseases of the loins. We were told that about fifteen years ago Mount Shirane, about two leagues distant, had an eruption and showered down much pumice on the surrounding country. " No. 10. On the right side of Ikarigawa, opposite to Takahara. Said to be good for wounds. "No. 11. On both sides of Yugavva, in Higashiyama, about a league east of Wakamatsu. [See also page 26.] "Nos. 12-13. On the right side of the stream near the road in Ooshio village, about 5^- leagues north-uorth-east of Wakamatsu. From this mineral water common salt was made. [See also page 29.] "Nos. 14-20.- On both sides of Surukamigawa, which is about 200 feet wide, between lizaka and Yuuomura, three leagues north-west of Fukushima, said to be good for swellings and wounds. A suspension bridge here adds much to the scenery. "No. 21. Akayu village is about five leagues north- east of Yonezawa. "No. 22. Kami 11 oy am a is a small town about three leagues south of Yamagata. "No. 23. Yunomura is about 1,200 yards west of Kitanoura on the northern coast of Ogashima. The water is said to be good for eye-diseases and wounds. "No. 24. On the side of the stream near Horinouchi, about a league east of Ookubo." I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obedient servant, BENJ. SMITH LYMAN. Kooji Machi; 9th September, 1879. 242 KEPORT ON SOME OIL WELL STATISTICS GATHERED THROUGH THE ASSISTANT GEOLOGISTS OF THE GEO- LOGICAL SURVEY OF JAPAN; BY BENJAMIN SMITH LYMAN. To His Excellency, A. YAMADA, Public Works Minister. SIR: I beg to make the following report of statistical infor- mation gathered by the Assistant Geologists of the Geological Survey of Japan while in my charge, and lately communicated to me. It would have been highly desirable on many accounts to obtain much more com- plete statistics ; but our force was small and very fully occupied with matters that were still more important and that could less easily be attended to by men not specially trained for geological surveying. The statistics of the oil wells of Akita Ken and of the Kurokawa field were gathered by Messrs. T. Kuwadaand S. Nisbiyama ; those of the Kanadzu field and of the Aburaden and Miyamoto field by Messrs. T. Inagaki and S. Maeda; those of the Amaze and Sakata field and of the Matsudai field and of Shisharishiukooji, in Shinano, by Messrs. T. Kada and J. Shimada ; those of the Miyoohooji and Tootoomi field by Messrs. J. Su- giura and I. Ban ; and those of the Betsuyama aud Dooyama field, of the Tateno field aud of Shinano (except 243 Shisharishinkooji) by Messrs. T. Yamauchi (Chief Assis- tant Geologist), E. Yamagiwa. M. Maeda and Y. Aki- yama. Except in the case of Messrs. Kuwada and Nishiyama, the statistics of 1878 concern only the wells dug after 1876, the new wells ; and those of 1876 have been revised only in. the office here. The following tables give the principal facts in regard to the oil wells of Akita Ken, and of all Japan. In Akita ken : Mcnagata is in Yamamotogoori ; Masugawa, Nigori- kawa, Yabase, Kurokawa, Hinge and Tsukiuoki are in Akitagoori ; and Oguni, Iseichi, and Yokooka are in Yurigoori. Of the Menagata wells, Nos. 2 and 5 are at Ishizaka Kawabata, and the rest, at Kuwanoki Yauchi. The wells of Masugawa are at Kusoodo ; of Nigorikawa, at Higashidaira ; of Yabase at Otsukaminami ; of Kuro- kawa, at Kusoozawa, of Oguni at Kureki ; of Iseichi, at Hodogasawa ; and of Yokooka at Ooyachi. The Meua- gata, Masugawa, Nigorikawa, Yabase, Kurokawa and the numbered Oguni wells belong to the Akita Oil Company ; the unnumbered Oguui wells to Abe Giemon ; and the Iseichi and Yokooka wells to Ooba. The oil of Masu- gawa, Nigorikawa No. 1, Oguni No. 1, 5 and 1 (new) are dark green and opalescent ; those of Meuagata No. 9 and Kurokawa No. 2 are greenish black and opalescent ; and those of the Kurokawa, Riugeand Tsukinoki shallow holes are black. Those of Menagata No. 9, Masugawa No. 1, Nigorikawa No. 1, Oguni No. 1, 5 and 1 (new) are thick and heavy ; and those of Kurokawa No. 2 and of the shallow holes very thick and heavy. The Oguni oil marks 38 Beaume. . At Miyoohooji there were in 1876 four other wells of which no description could be obtained. The average depth given is for those finished wells whose depth is known. The numbers with a star are only approximate. 244 I * 1 2 1 a ^ t 1 o g ' ft pO fe - -0 ' " % >. * oooooooo K- 00000 i-rcocci O-^ i 1 CC C^ Cl .9 o^ 2S 5 - (M CO <74 (M 1 M ft > ooo coooa5oooo Or-HCQ(MCCr-l SO I T* r-5 I 25 3. >>0 05 S^: -s Jo pq oooooooo o oooooooooooo > 245 R 43 43 tll aSl SPU 2 i !! i! 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