﻿Reviews — Lyman's Geology of Japan. 523 



ground, and what seem to be rather speculative lines to mark, not 

 merely the outcrops of the important beds, but also their positions 

 at various depths beneath the surface. One of the maps, a sketch 

 of the geology of Yesso, is lithographed in colours, the first attempt 

 of the kind made in Japan, its registry is almost perfect, and it could 

 scarcely have been better executed anywhere else. On the whole 

 there is no Geological Survey with which we are acquainted that 

 produces its results in much better form. 



In some respects the reports may be called exhaustive, they are so 

 numerous and so detailed. One section is given through 6500 feet 

 of rocks, showing frequently the thickness of strata only amount- 

 ing to small decimals of a foot, and the distances of one observation 

 from another are often mentioned in the number of paces actually 

 stepped, besides stating larger measurements and those of quantity 

 in both English and Japanese terms. The angles and directions of 

 dips and strikes are profusely recorded, and even the forms of the 

 ground below the sea are mentioned. 



Nor are the geology and economic geology alone the subjects of 

 these reports ; most of them have the forua of a traveller's journal, 

 abounding with remarks upon the topography, forests, water power, 

 hotels, horses, weather, inhabitants, the customs, schools, spelling 

 and pronunciation of Japanese names, political economy, in short 

 nearly everything a tourist in a strange land would observe. 

 Throughout, though geological features receive attention largeljs the 

 practical mining engineer as an observing medium is very evident. 



Considerable space is devoted to Coal-fields, as a matter of coui'se, 

 the carriage and shipment of the mineral, with numerous tables, 

 showing the constitution of the various beds, and we learn that there 

 are in Yesso, both above and below sea-level down to 4000 feet, 

 150,000,000,000 tons of workable coal, or "two-thirds as much as 

 the coal of the same thickness of the famous fields of Great Britain." 

 One descriptive term of frequent occurrence, " bony coal," may be 

 an American expression, with the meaning of which we are un- 

 acquainted. 



The mineral oil of Yesso is black, thick, and does not seem to be 

 of much economic importance. The island contains an estimated 

 quantity of 3700 tons of native sulphur. One of the sources of this, 

 on a promontory at the N.E. side of the island, is thus described : 

 " It is a large hole in the midst of the deposit, . . . perhaps a 

 hundred feet in diameter, and thirty feet deep, and at the bottom 

 has a smaller hole, perhaps twenty feet long and fifteen wide. The 

 smaller hole is full to within perhaps five feet of its brim, with a 

 dark brownish-gray, muddy-looking liquid, which is boiling violently 

 and spouting upwards for several feet in great commotion, and 

 sending out heavy fumes of sulphur that hide the view much of the 

 time. The liquid would appear to be nothing but melted sulphur ; 

 in the whole branch valley there was no water to be seen. More- 

 over, water could not exist at that temperature in such a place 

 without quickly turning to steam and disappearing ; and no steam 

 is noticeable in the fumes. They are rising from the hole, are 



