SEAWEED INDUSTRIES <>K JAPAN. 



HU 



The chief localities for the manufacture of iodine are in Hokkaido and the pre 

 fectuies of Chilia. Kanagawa, Yamaguchi, and Shizuoka. No general statistics are 

 available, and it is not known how extensive the business now is. but the following 

 extract from the Yokohama Shimpo gives some idea of its importance ( L903): 



Although the manufacture of iodine in Japan can not as yet be said to l>c carried on extensively, 

 yet it is a matter for congratulation that it has been so far advanced as to put a complete stop to the 

 importation of the foreign article, ami the manufacturers in all parts of the country are making pretty 

 good profits out of the business, The general tendency is that, with the increase of demand for the 

 chemical, the business would become one of the most important industries in the Empire. In the case 

 of Kanagawa prefecture, Mr. Sudzuki, of Hayama, near Yokohama, started the manufacture of iodine 



Kajinu'" [Ecktonin cava) 



'Arame" (Ecklonia blcyclis) 



at that place a few years age with a small capital. The business has now proved so successful that he 

 has enlarged the business to such an extent as to enable him not only to meet the demand at home 

 l.ut also to export some of the product to foreign countries. Probably this is now the largest factory 

 of the kind in Japan. It is said that, as a result of careful investigations, he has now discovered that 

 the residue left after extracting iodine from seaweed can be- used as material for making nitrate of soda 

 and chloride of sodium, and that he at present turns out some 12,000 yen worth of the latter article in 

 a year. The difficulty, however, seems to he that it is no easy work to collect such a quantity of sea- 

 weed as is required in the manufacture. 



THE AUi.E UTILIZED. 



Iodine exists in many species of marine algse, and in -Japan is obtained from 

 about ten species, representing three or four genera. In Hokkaido only "kombu" 

 (kelp) of various kinds is used, but in other sections the seaweeds in greatest favor 



B. B. F. 1904— IX 



