CERAMICS. 473 



Its forms have greatly altered during the last {^\n decades, 

 owing to the influence of foreign customers, and have become 

 better adapted to European tastes and uses. AH kinds of plates, 

 with tea and coffee services, are exported. The urn-shaped 

 covered jars, without handles, have almost entirely disappeared 

 from the number of larger decorative pieces, and open flower- 

 vases of various forms and sizes have taken their place. The 

 wavy and bent-edged vases without handles, which were never 

 made in former times, are now especially numerous. I have 

 already described some (page 377) which are decorated with 

 lacquer-painting ; these of course cannot be glazed. Boiled glue 

 with iron ochre (Tonoko) ground to a paste forms the material 

 of the ground-work in these cases. When it is dry, and smoothly 

 polished, Naka-nuri, Togi, and Makiyeshi work follow, as has been 

 described in detail under lacquer industry. 



The Amakusa-ishi, or Stone of Amakusa. 



A small group of islands, named Amakusa, after the largest and 

 most western of the number, lies south of the province of Hizen 

 and its volcanic peninsula Shimabara, in 32° to 32^° N. Latitude, 

 and from 130° to 130^° E. of Greenwich. ^ The north-western part 

 of the island of Amakusa can be reached from Nagasaki by the 

 southerly road, which leads to the beautifully situated little port of 

 Mogi, 2 ri distant, and then by a three hours' sail over the Chijiwa- 

 nada, landing in Tomioka. Desirous of becoming acquainted with 

 the places where porcelain stone is quarried, which 1 had seen 

 designated as Amakusa-ishi in Ota near Yokohama, Kioto, and 

 elsewhere, I undertook this journey in the spring of 1875. This 

 remarkable material is obtained at several places on the western 

 coast, from 2 to 6 ri south-west from Tomioka, not far from 

 the post stations Shimotsuke-Fukei, Kodakoro, and Takahama. 

 It is used in the last-named place also for making a common porce- 

 lain, but is chiefly sent into other parts of the country. The best 

 comes from the Iguchi-yama, i ri east of Takahama, in whose 

 vicinity there is also an antimony rnine (see page 309). 



Porcelain stone appears on this sterile island, with its slate 

 and sandstone rock, partly in great masses, standing often alone, 

 but generally surrounded with yellowish or grey-w4iite clay sand- 

 stone. It is a metamorphic, volcanic rock, white, grey-white or 

 yellowish in colour, similar to Arita-ishi but firmer, harder and 

 heavier, and is partly silicated and partly kaolinized. The body 

 presents a fine-grained mass of kaolin and quartz, and contains 

 single quartz grains as well as crystalline hollow spaces from 



^ The excellent map of B. Hassenstein, in his large Atlas of Japan, serves 

 best for finding these places; but the maps belonging to the first volmne of this 

 work will also suffice. 



