ipio.] DUBOIS— JAPANESE EMBASSY OF i860. 255 



active investigators. Oguri produced a sort of steelyard of ivory 

 with which he proceeded to test our weights against his own. The 

 censor also brought forth an abacus or counting machine consisting 

 of fifteen rows of wooden buttons sliding by five on parallel wires. 

 Quite in accord with these crude and antiquated methods was the 

 demand that the gold cobang (about as big as the palm of the hand) 

 should be assayed not by a sample cut from it, but by consuming the 

 entire piece. The chief assayer, Jacob R. Eckfeldt, and his as- 

 sistant, William E. DuBois, were for the moment nonplussed by so 

 extraordinary a request. High accuracy demanded very small 

 samples and their department was nothing if not scientifically pre- 

 cise. But the heathenish proposition was uncompromising and the 

 whole cobang it must be. When, after two or three hours, the gold 

 had been separated and weighed and its fineness thus ascertained the 

 envoys were not satisfied. They must next know exactly of what 

 the alloy was made up. Sure enough, we see in this very demand 

 an indication of what we have seen since — thoroughness. 



Three cobangs were thus tested and to satisfy the strangers, also 

 a United States gold dollar. Notwithstanding the cumbrous method 

 of using an entire piece the results were exceedingly satisfactory — 

 the cobangs running about 572 parts fine in 1,000. (It should be 

 stated that while the embassy was yet in Washington a number of 

 their coins were forwarded to Philadelphia to be tested in advance 

 of the embassy's inspection. There were about twenty-five pieces 

 in all, gold and silver itsebus and gold cobangs. They ran with a 

 fair approach to uniformity.) At intervals, during the long opera- 

 tions the orientals took a short squat on their heels to smoke their 

 tiny pipes. A luncheon was served to them in the mint when the 

 display of chop-stick skill — picking up one pea at a time at high 

 speed with two sticks, for instance — was recreating to observant 

 America. 



After this the envoys requested the mint officers to meet them at 

 the Continental Hotel and hold a conference on matters relative to 

 a comparison of Japanese and American coinage and means of 

 exchange. Accordingly, Director Snowden and his clerk Linder- 

 man ; the assayer, Eckfeldt, and his assistant, DuBois ; and the 



