CERAMICS. 469 



visited all of them in 1874 and 1875, and studied their methods, 

 the character and occurrence of the raw materials used, and other 

 matters connected therewith, so far as time permitted, making me- 

 moranda which serve as basis for much that is written here. A 

 map is attached to this work, illustrative of the chapter on Mining 

 Industry, and giving nearly all the above places as well as the 

 most notable deposits of various porcelain stones. 



Arita Porcelain, Imari or Hizen. 



All the porcelain which was brought into Europe previous to 1854 

 by the Dutch from Japan by way of Nagasaki, and which has been 

 reckoned for a long time among the most valuable portion of ceramic 

 collections, is known by one of the three above names, and also as 

 " Old Hizen." The first of these names (formerly little used), de- 

 notes the place of manufacture ; the second, the small neighbouring 

 harbour and shipping port ; the third, the province in which the 

 two, together with Nagasaki, are situated. 



Arita lies very nearly in the middle of the most divided pro- 

 vince of Japan, 15 Ri (about 36 miles) north of Nagasaki, on 

 the farther side of the bay of 6mura, and 11 Ri west of Saga in 

 33° 10' N. latitude and 129° 50' E. of Greenwich. It is a small 

 city of 1,200 dwelling-houses, and 6,000 inhabitants, most of whom 

 have supported themselves for nearly 300 years as is the case in 

 neighbouring towns, by the flourishing porcelain industry. Though 

 it is not the central point of Japanese porcelain manufacture, as it 

 has been repeatedly asserted, its industry is at any rate the most 

 highly developed and most conspicuous of all the potteries in 

 Japan. 



The small town is situated at an elevation of 90 meters above the 

 sea, in a hilly region, covered mainly with pine forests. One of these 

 ranges of hills lying to the eastward, furnishes Arita immense and 

 inexhaustible quantities of porcelain stone of incomparable quality. 

 It is a peculiar material, from which pottery of the most varying 

 forms is made, from the light and finest egg-shell porcelain to the 

 imposing vases of two meters height.^ The volcanic origin of 

 Arita-ishi (Arita stone) has been recognised unanimously by those 

 who have examined it in the place where it is found, as von Richt- 

 hofen, Wagener, Rein and Lyman, or from specimens, as by GUm- 

 bel, Pabst and vom Rath.^ 



^ The original of the coloured heliotype of Plate XIX. is in the collection of 

 Wagner & Co., 2, Dessauer Street, BerHn, and belongs, on account of its cyhn- 

 drical form and peculiar decoration (coloured butterflies raised on a white 

 ground), without doubt to the rare specimens of Arita-yaki. 



2 Differing from his former opinion that it belongs to the tertiary unstratified 

 rock, a formation full of sihcic acid like RhyoHthic tufa {Zeitschrijt der deuischen 

 geol. Gesellschaft^ 32 Bd. § 255). F. von Richthofen. in his latest work(" Fiihrer 

 fiir Forschungsreisende," 1886, p. 9, 590), which has just come from the press, 

 expresses himself as follows : " The large deposits at Imari in Japan are pro- 



