THE ART OF CASTING BRONZE IN JAPAF. 629 



disadvantage of being extremely brittle in cold weather; beeswax; 

 resin, obtained from various conifers, cliiefly Pinus massoniana and 

 densiflora; clay, raw and burned; river sand; chopped rice straw; 

 rice husks. Various mixtures of vegetable wax and resin, to which 

 beeswax is sometimes added, also of beeswax and resin alone, are used 

 for modeling, according to the character of the design of the object, and 

 the extent and nature of its ornament. For castings of the highest 

 class, and especially for those with delicate lines and forms or ornament, 

 the latter mixtures are always employed, the former being used only for 

 large or common works of simple shapes, with rough or little decora- 

 tion. The clays used in Osaka and Kioto are obtained from the hills 

 of decomposed granite in the neighborhood. They are extremely plastic, 

 but are not very refractory, as they contain considerable amounts of the 

 alkalies. 



Great care is devoted to their "tempering," which is effected by many 

 months, even years, of exposure to the weather, with frequent turning 

 over in the yard or sheds of the foundry. They are always mixed for 

 use with varying proportions of old iire bricks in both fine and coarse 

 powder, and wlien employed for large or solid cores with coarsely 

 chopped rice straw, rice husks, and river sand. Special importance is 

 attached to the use of the oldest clay for the preparation of molds and 

 hollow cores, as it has been found by experience that they are then 

 much stronger and less liable to crack than when made of newer mate- 

 rial. The amount of rough usage these molds will bear without injury 

 is very surprising. I have seen them rolled over the rough floor of the 

 foundry from one end to the other and yet yield perfect castings. The 

 core, which is one of the most important i)arts of the mold, possesses 

 some curious features which are specially characteristic of Japanese 

 foundry practice. For small figures it is generally solid, and these diifer 

 but little from those in common use everywhere; in other cases it is 

 always hollow. 



The hollow core — this is used by the Japanese wlienever possible — is 

 of two kinds, in one of which it is closed at one end: in the other both 

 ends are open. The chief pe(;uliarity of the former is its thinness, 

 compared with similar cores in Europe, otherwise it does not differ 

 much from them. I will hence only describe in detail the latter, or 

 open core, as it has many peculiarities, and is i)articularly distinctive 

 of the methods of founding adopted by artists. In its usual form 

 its thickness is not much, sometimes not at all, greater than that of 

 the outer shell of the mold; in fact, it merely forms its inner wall; 

 and, in order that this kind of core may be employed almost all 

 castings, even of vases, braziers, and similar objects, are cast without 

 a bottom, the bottom being cast separately and subsequently attached 

 by means of solder. It is usually fashioned on a wooden framework, 

 the parts of which are ingeniously arranged, so that it can be with- 

 drawn as soon as the entire mold has been finished and dried. This 



