CERAMICS. 47r 



great size. A pair which I saw, were six feet eleven inches high 

 (r995 m.), and were of faultless burning, richly decorated with 

 cobalt blue under glaze, and valued at 500 yen or about ^100. 

 Such pieces are made up of several parts, which must be dried for 

 four or five days in the air after being shaped. They are then 

 taken to the wheel again, and placed on a dish-like hollowed mass 

 of soft material, when their edges are so trimmed off, like wood, 

 with a piece of sharpened sheet-iron twice bent at right angles, 

 that the parts fit together exactly, or dove-tail, in box-fashion. 

 They are then softened at these points by long submersion in 

 water, and put together, closely uniting at the points of contact, 

 by means of the plastic paste. In the burning, which follows, 

 they are placed on plates of fire-proof tile, without cases. 



Egg-shell porcelain, Usu-de-yaki, i.e. "thin burned," is now made 

 principally at Mikawaji, a place 3 Ri from Arita. A workman in 

 Arita, however, showed us the process. The best, most finely 

 pulverized and purified material is used in its manufacture. The 

 dishes and cups are turned quite thin on a sharpened wooden 

 gauging-rod, and then left upon it several days to dry in the open 

 air, when, like the pieces of vases, they are further turned on the 

 wheel, though much more thoroughly, and then burned in cases. 



I saw a dozen large porcelain furnaces in Arita. The low vaults 

 are larger than any others I observed in Japan, each one consisting 

 of 12 to 16 arches, about 25 feet deep (7*58 m.), 15 feet (4*55 m.) 

 broad, and from 10 to 12 (3*03 to 3*64 m.) high, all arranged in rows 

 one above the other on an inclined plane. They are built of fire- 

 proof clay and mud, on a floor covered with quartz sand, with an 

 opening from two-thirds of a meter to one meter broad, and the fire 

 boxes and testing places on one long side of the row, while the other 

 long side is entirely closed. Each partition wall has a row of 

 square openings about 25 to 30 centimeters above the floor, allowing 

 the hot air to pass through from one vault to the next higher. 

 The lowest and principal fire is kept burning for almost a whole 

 day and the side fires are kindled about six hours after the first 

 has been lighted. C. Giimbel analysed the raw material and the 

 beautiful white porcelain of Arita also, with the following result : 

 7074 per cent. Si Oo, 2175 per cent. AI2 O3, 2'02 per cent. Fe O3, 

 072 per cent. Ca O, 0'02 per cent. Mg O, 3*23 per cent. Ka O, and 

 2'43 per cent. Na^O. 



The manufacture at Arita is generally traced back to Gorodayu 

 Shonsui, a potter of the province of Ise, who lived at the beginning 

 of the 1 6th century. Moved by the beauty and value of Chinese 

 porcelain, which began to reach Japan at this time, he undertook 

 a journey to King-te-tschin by way of Foochow, and remained 

 there for five years for the purpose of learning the trade. After 

 his return, in the loth year of Yeisho (15 14), he settled in the then 

 insignificant town of Arita and prepared from the materials he had 

 brought from King-te-tschin a number of coarse porcelain wares, 



