302 MINING. 



of coal. It is seldom found native, or in oxydized form. Copper 

 pyrites is the chief of its sulphides, out of which at least nine- 

 tenths of all the Japanese copper is extracted. 



It is customary to mix the roasted ores (copper pyrites, copper 

 glance, and bornite) with ironstone and metallic iron, and to reduce 

 them in little blast furnaces by means of charcoal.^ If the crude 

 metal contains silver it is again melted together with lead, which 

 takes up the silver and some copper, and then to set free the silver, 

 passes through the well-known conversion in the refining furnace. 

 I saw this process at Hachiman in Mino. The larger number 

 and by far the best of the Japanese copper mines are in private 

 hands.=^ Table B shows the copper mines of Beshi in lyo on the 

 island of Shikoku to be the richest in yield of all the mines of the 

 country. It is the well-known D6-san or copper mountain, cele- 

 brated throughout the whole country, which has been worked for a 

 long while. Close upon these mines follow those of Zomeki in 

 Nagato, concerning which I know nothing further — nor of the others 

 succeeding in the list, the mines of Kusakura in Echigo, Tatesato 

 in Yamato, Arakawa in Ugo, Nakaso in Bitchiu, and Takidani in 

 Echigo. The last-named directly precedes Ashio in Shimotsuke 

 in the hst. This mining and smelting work is situated 6 ri from 

 Nikko, has been for a long time (according to Lyman since 1610) 

 in operation, and must be the copper-yielding mine spoken of by 

 Kaempfer as Asingo. I saw in Nikko pink coloured rock crystals 

 from there and heard that the smelting-house in 1873 yielded 

 20,000 kilogrammes of blue vitriol besides 500 tons of copper, 

 amounts which according to more recent reports have been greatly 

 increased.^ The copper mine Osarusawa is situated in the same 

 district (upper valley of the Noshiro-gawa) of Katsuno of the Akita- 

 ken, to which the before-mentioned silver mines of Ani and Kosaka 

 belong. Twelve years ago, this mine was accounted the richest in 

 Japan. It lies 24 ri north-west of Morioka in Nambu whence the 

 copper is brought by beasts of burden, in order to be shipped in 

 flat boats down the Kitakami-gawa to Ishinomaki, and thence by 

 sea to Tokio."* 



Our table shows many other copper mines in different parts of 

 the country, and gives evidence that copper is, in fact, the most 

 widely distributed of all the Japanese metals. 



Lead, Yen or Namari. The very meagre quantity of this metal 

 is seen in the two lists. Japanese lead mining, consisting of a 



^ The extracting of lead from Galena ore takes place in similar manner by 

 the help of iron and coal as reducing agents. See Pumpelly, " Across America 

 and Asia," p. 147. 



2 The enormous increase in the price of copper during the last twelve months has 

 had great influence on the production and rentability of Japanese copper mines. 



2 See Lyman : " Geological Survey of Japan." Reports, 1878-79. 



"* In the autumn of 1874, on the way from Morioka to the Ganju-san, I met 

 a great many horses and oxen laden with such copper, and heard on the 

 following day that 39 horse-loads of it had arrived to be shipped. 



