On Smelting Copper in Japan. 337 



our teachers, are sailors or tradesmen, persons in ordinary life and 

 of common education, and who in their own country would prob- 

 ably have never attempted to read a book on metallurgy. They 

 know but little more than how to read simple works, or write 

 mercantile letters. 



Plate I. Of digging the ore. — This plate is in two compart- 

 ments; the first represents a miner entering the mouth of the pit, 

 carrying a lamp in one hand, and a pick in the other, with an 

 empty basket swung on his back. At the entrance, he meets a 

 second miner just coming out with a basket of ore. The second 

 shows the same person reaching the extremity of the mine, where 

 is a third workman engaged in cleaving the ore from its bed. 



This, and all the succeeding plates are painted ; the colors are 

 everywhere laid on in an artist-like manner, though the cheap- 

 ness of the work apparently forbade much labor. 



"The copper, as it comes from the hills, is undoubtedly in the 

 form of ore ; the ore is the effluence of the copper, and in a ser- 

 pentine vein it rises and appears upon the top of the hill. There 

 are many sorts of ore; that which is of a reddish black color, 

 soft and not very heavy, and taken from veins running from east 

 to west (or horizontally), is the best. The overseer of the mine 

 examines and assorts the ore. Rafters, planks, joists, pillars, &c, 

 are used to uphold and prevent the mouth of the mine from 

 caving in. When commencing, the rock is worked with ham- 

 pers and chisels; the [barren] stones are thrown away as they 

 are dag, and tiie ore is brought out ; by degrees the hill is pene- 

 trated, and the hole thus formed is called a mine. A lamp made 

 of a shell is used as a light, and the quarried stone, put into bas- 

 kets, is carried out on the back. Wherever the quarrying has 

 been done, rafters, planks, and pillars are set up to restrain the 

 overhanging rocks lest they fall. There are many kinds of both 

 good and bad ore. When the mine has been dug deep, the air 

 does not permeate it, and the lamp goes out; therefore, in places 

 above the mouth of the pit, holes are cut down reaching to the 

 mi ne, opening into it in many places, and secured by planks, 

 afters, &c. ; they are called shiyaku hachi or flute-holes. Thus 

 the wind is made to circulate. The whole is called Juki ma- 

 washi or wind-ventilator." 



Plate II. Asserting the ore.— This plate exhibits a company 

 °f women, with hammers in hand, pounding the ore, and separa- 

 ting the barren stone ; one of them has her child strapped to her 

 ba ck. A copper tea-pot stands hard by, and one old dame is 

 ^joying her pipe while plying her hammer. 



"Among the ore there are both rich and poor kinds, combined 

 w 'th the plain rock; the poor is separated from the stone, which 

 ls then thrown aside, and called refuse stone. This is the em- 

 ployment of old men and women." 



