METAL INDUSTRY. 437 



with him his brush and fluid India ink, the Kana-darai, the wash- 

 dish of brass or copper, and the Yuwakashi or copper kettle for 

 boiling water. 



Copper cannot be cast like iron and bronze, because it makes 

 bubbles and forms holes in stiffening. It is therefore worked up 

 into wire and sheet form. It is very much used in this form for 

 mounting fine boxes and cabinets, with holds and cramps, which 

 are most tastefully decorated by engraving of arabesques, flowers, 

 birds, and other things.^ 



I will give here another method of treating copper, which has 

 not yet been mentioned anywhere else. I first became acquainted 

 with it through the celebrated bronze manufacturer, Kanaya Goro- 

 saburo, in Kioto. Besides many sorts of bronze ware, he makes 

 also small copper water-kettles, holding from a half to a whole 

 liter, in which only the revolving knob of the cover and the two 

 soldered handle-ears, are made of a brass-like bronze. The forms 

 of these kettles are extraordinarily pleasing, including the handle, 

 whose upper part is finished with a beautiful plaiting of rattan. 

 The ornamentation of the simplest kettles consists of a lustrous 

 dark coffee-brown patina, after whose preparation vine decorations 

 and other light and pleasing designs are engraved upon it. The 

 reddish brown copper colour which appears in the engraved leaves 

 and flowers and also in the lustrous dark brown ground colour is 

 very effective. The richer ornamentation consists of inlaying and 

 encrusting with silver and gold. The inside of the kettle also 

 generally receives a silver plating, as a protection against acids. 

 The dark coffee-brown colour of copper and bronze, as I saw it on 

 a copper Yuwakashi, is obtained in the following manner. Equal 

 weights of green vitriol (Roha), copper vitriol (Tampan), and sul- 

 phur (Iwo), are respectively mixed with water. The copper article 

 is then dipped in this bath, which must be often stirred on account 

 of the finely distributed sulphur, and then rinsed in a second bath 

 prepared in the same way, but very much thinner. This process is 

 repeated till the necessary corrosion is attained, which is recog- 

 nised by long practice. The vessel is then brought to the Hibachi 

 or fire-pan, and heated here on an iron grate, whose bars are from 

 eight to twelve centimeters distant from each other, and with fre- 

 quent turning. In order not to endanger the soldering, these bars 

 are sprinkled from time to time with water in which Kariyasu 

 {Calamagrostis Hakonensis, Franch. and Sav.) has been boiled. 

 The vessel is now rubbed with a cloth, then painted lightly with 

 Ki- (or Seshime-) urushi, rubbed again with the cloth, painted once 

 more and now heated until the sprinkled Kari-yasu water rolling 



1 I have never observed in Japan the Indian and Persian method of decorat- 

 ing copper vessels, by giving them a coating of tin in which the ornamentation 

 is engraved or carved down to the copper ground. On the other hand, the 

 enameHng borrowed from the Chinese is well known and practised. Fuller 

 details in regard to this will be found in the last chapter of this section. 



