193 
tricks of balancing, and of jugglers who do the “ butterfly 
trick,” which has lately been so popular among ourselves, 
elicit great applause. 
formances, that even the priests, in some of the great 
temples, engage in sacred dances to add to the “legiti- 
mate” attractions of the places of worship. Fencing is 
a favourite amusement, and is taught to women. 
The public baths where men and women conduct their 
ablutions in the sight of all the world, and the tea-houses, 
at which women wait on the guests, are two features of 
Japanese life which are very strange to European eyes. 
The town of Yeddo has a very striking physiognomy, 
so to speak. To the south are the suburbs on the shores 
of the bay ; in the centre the citadel and the dwellings of 
the nobility ; to the south-east, the trading town ; to the 
east, the quays and bridges of the great river, and on the 
left bank the industrial city of Hondjo; to the north le 
the temples, the fields where fairs are held, the theatres 
and public places of amusement. The western quarters 
are occupied by the general city population; and the 
suburbs of the north and west are full of verdure and flowers. 
Yeddo has been calculated to-have 1,800,000 inhabitants, 
although as an important city it only dates from the 
beginning of the 17th century. It is the northern termi- 
nation of the great military road, the Tokaido, which 
traverses the empire from Nagasaki to Yeddo, near to 
which are built towns, villages, and many houses of the 
nobility, and along which the Daimois pass when proceed- 
ing to their compulsory residence in Yeddo, The modes 
of travel in use are either horseback, or palanquins 
carried by men. ‘These latter are of two kinds; the 
norimon, closed on all sides, and in use among the upper 
classes, and the cango, light in construction, open at the 
sides, and used by the common people. As the Daimois 
pass along with their two-sworded retinue, all passengers 
give way to them, those that are on horseback dismount, 
and all stand bending low till the great man has gone on 
his way. The refusal of foreigners to submit to this fashion 
has led to the murder of more than one. 
Yeddo is a busy town. Cotton and silk manufactures 
of a delicate kind, the making of porcelain, dyeing, 
tanning, the working in metals, the carving of stone, wood, 
and ivory, the manufactures of paper and of leather are 
all carried on in the town. (An illustration of the delicate 
silk embroidery which is made by the Japanese is given 
in the accompanying woodcuts, which represent silken 
dress ornaments.) In the suburbs, especially of the 
northern part, the gardens of the florists, the rural tea- 
houses, and the rice-fields are found. Minor industries 
—those of the makers of chop-sticks, of toothpowder, of 
dolls, of makers of mats, basket-work, and boxes, down to 
that of the humble rag picker—are to be found exercised 
in the small shops, or in the streets of Yeddo. The 
streets are full of life. The trades are carried on by the 
artisans, the jugglers and acrobats exercise their skill, 
men, women, and children pass along, bent on amusement 
or pleasure ; here an enormous artificial fish, or a flag dis- 
played at a house, announces the birth of a child; there 
a wedding procession takes its way; a Daimio passes, 
and all bow to the ground; an alarm of fire from one of 
the many watchtowers of the city calls out the firemen ; 
the watch goes on its rounds; beggars exercise their arts 
as a kind of sacred trade—in a word, all the complicated 
machinery of a busy town life is to be seen in active 
operation, in what was the great capital of the Tycoon. 
A jealous exclusion of foreigners prevailed in Japan for 
more than twocenturies and ahalf; the only favoured people 
being the Dutch, who were permitted to build a small factory 
at Decima, and to send thither annually two trading vessels. 
The arrival of foreigners and their trade were regarded by 
the Tycoon and the nobles with dislike, chiefly because 
of the possibility that the introduction of new ideas might 
upset the old order of things; and the residence of foreign 
Ministers in Yeddo was rendered so uncomfortable, and 
So popular also are ballet per- | 
NATURE 
[ Dec. 16, 1869 
even dangerous, that the legations settled in Yokohama 
as their permanent place of residence. 
Recent events have effected a great change in the 
government of Japan. The Mikado, the theocratic 
emperor, has abolished the office of Tycoon. He has left 
his sacred city, and established himself, temporarily at 
| least, in Yeddo, where the legations are in greater security 
than before. The export of tea and silk, already great, is 
increasing : and it is possible that Japan, so long isolated, 
may in time resume her relations with the outer world, and 
become, as her early records show her to have been, a 
busily trading, progressive nation. 
It will be seen from the foregoing notice that M. Hum- 
bert’s volumes contain an immense mass of valuable in- 
formation as well as exquisite illustrations and lighter 
matter, J. A. CHESSAR 
FOOD OF OCEANIC ANIMALS 
HE receipt of an interesting paper by Professor 
Dickie, entitled “‘ Notes on range in depth of marine 
Algze,” lately published by the Botanical Society of Edin- 
burgh, induces me to call the attention of physiologists to 
the fact, that plant-life appears to be absent in the ocean, 
with the exception of a comparatively narrow fringe 
(known as the littoral and laminarian zones), which girds 
the coasts, and of the * Sargasso” tract in the Gulf of 
Mexico. 
During the recent exploration in H.M.S. Porcupine of 
part of the North Atlantic, I could not detect the slightest 
trace of any vegetable organism at a greater depth than 
fifteen fathoms. Animal organisms of all kinds and sizes, 
living and dead, were everywhere abundant, from the 
surface to the bottom ; and it might at first be supposed 
that such constituted the only food of the oceanic animals 
which were observed, some of them being zoophagons, 
others sarcophagons, none phytophagons. But inasmuch 
as all animals are said to exhale carbonic acid gas, and on 
their death the same gas 1s given out by their decomposi- 
tion, whence do oceanic animals get that supply of carbon 
which terrestrial and littoral or shallow-water animals 
derive, directly or indirectly, from plants? Can any class 
of marine animals assimilate the carbon contained in the 
sea, as plants assimilate the carbon contained in the air? 
Not being a physiologist, I will not presume to offer an 
opinion ; but the suggestions or questions which I have 
ventured to submit may perhaps be worth consideration. 
At all events the usual theory, that all animals ultimately 
depend for their nourishment on vegetable life, seems not 
to be applicable to the main ocean, and consequently not 
to one-half of the earth’s surface. 
J. GWYN JEFFREYS 
GOLD DIGGERS IN THIBET 
AP Bue Thibetan gold-field of Thok-Jalung in lat. 32° 
24’ 26” and long. 81° 37’ 38” was visited by the 
pundits employed by the G. T. Survey, in 1867 (August). 
The camp was pitched in a large desolate plain of a 
reddish brown appearance, the tents stand in pits seven 
or cight feet deep for protection against the cold wind, the 
elevation being 16,330 feet, yet the diggers prefer to work 
in the winter, when nearly 600 tents are to be found there ; 
the soil when frozen does not “cave in.” They have no 
wood, but use dried dung for fuel, and the water is so 
brackish as to be undrinkable until frozen and remelted. 
They live well, taking three meals a-day of boiled meat, 
barley cakes, and tea stewed with butter. They will not 
use the Himalayan tea, as too heating and only fit for 
poor folks. 
The gold is obtained from an excavation a mile long, 
twenty-five feet deep, and ten to two hundred paces wide, 
through which a small stream runs ; the implements used 
are a long-handled kind of spade, and an iron hoe, 
