MINING AND SMELTING. 295 



mines. Its introduction, however, dates only from the year 1872, 

 when the American Pumpelly came to Japan as counsellor of the 

 government of the Shogun, in the department of mines. 



The water control belongs indisputably to the most primitive 

 and inadequate arrangements of Japanese mines, being effected by 

 means of a poor kind of hand-suction pumps, which are often quite 

 insufficient, so that a mine frequently has to be deserted because 

 the water becomes unmanageable. With these defects was often 

 associated a system of mining by contract, which increased the 

 planless plundering of the mines. The owner provided the plant 

 and looked after the water control, and maintained a weak over- 

 sight. The contractor undertook the extraction, preparation and 

 smelting. 



The preparation of the ores when brought to the surface is 

 effected without machines, and falls into the hands of women and 

 children exclusively, who are much employed in Europe also for 

 such work. First of all the ordinary method, picking by hand, is 

 employed to separate the richer ores from the poorer. Then the 

 latter are further crushed with a hammer, or in the stamping trough 

 (see p. 45) as employed for shelling rice. (There are, however, 

 more perfect stamping arrangements, like ours, with water for a 

 motive power, and an overshot wheel.) Next, the heavier, better 

 kinds of ore are separated from the lighter ore yet to be stamped 

 by a sort of jigging with the help of water, and thus prepared for 

 roasting and smelting. Gold ores, on the contrary, are ground 

 after the hand-picking in hand-mills under a stream of water ; and 

 the ore still to be washed is allowed to pass off over inclined boards, 

 grooved diagonally, so that the heavier gold-bearing lumps are 

 caught in the grooves. 



The sulphate roasting or calcining of the prepared sulphurized 

 ores takes place not in kilns or open stacks, but in Yaki-gama or 

 roasting furnaces, built up with stones and mortar. These are con- 

 structed as a rule on a circular foundation of from 4-6 feet in 

 diameter (121- 182 cm.), and to a height of 4 feet (121-32 cm.), and 

 have air holes on one side. 



For smelting all sorts of ores, the Japanese use a small, simple 

 oven or smelting hearth, 0-doko, or Fuki-doko (big, or blast-bed), 

 with a hand chest-bellows placed at its side. This is called 0-fuigo, 

 and is worked by one man. One person is sufficient also for the 

 smelting hearth. This hearth is a shallow pit, 12-15 cm. in depth, 

 and 40-50 cm. in diameter. It has a floor 30 cm. thick, made of a 

 cement of coal ashes and clay, stamped hard, resting in turn upon 

 sand. The fire wall surrounding the pit is a basket work made of 

 thin branches, and then covered close with mortar. Charcoal is the 

 means of reduction in mixing the charge materials. For further 

 details of smelting and of its results, and of mining in general, I beg 

 to refer to the instructive and profitable works, above cited, of 

 Rosing and Netto, which contain also observations on the Japanese 



