ON 

 MINING AND MINES IN JAPAN, 



BY 



C. NETTO. 



When Japan was thrown open for intercourse with the outer world, the belief 

 was general, that the mineral treasures of the country would in a prominent 

 degree hecome the subject of commercial enterprise. In the first place, the 

 reports of Makco Polo and Kaempfeu spoke of the country's inexhaustible 

 wealth in gold ; then the large quantities of bullion (estimated at 500 millions 

 of dollars), which the Portuguese and the Dutchmen, notwithstanding that their 

 intercourse with the natives bad always remained of a limited nature, had been 

 able to export in the course of little more than a century (1550-1671), were 

 proof, that a considerable quantity at all events had existed. Add to this, that 

 originally the rate of excbauge between the two precious metals was to the 

 European mind an abnormous one, as gold was only six times as much worth 

 as silver. People were only too apt to attribute this fact to a superfluity of 

 gold, instead of ascribing it to the at all events truer cause, a relative scarcity 

 of silver. 



Also with regard to copper, the public were, immediately after the opening 

 of the country, euticed into an over-estimate of the power of production, as they 

 judged the same by the exports ; but the latter iucluded a large portion of 

 metal, that had already been manufactured, which the Japanese threw on the 

 marcket in the shape of old gate-mountings, temple-ornaments, idols &c, either 

 directly or after having re-melted them. Nor was it surprising, if the foreigners 

 relished the hope, that they here, as in other countries, which had been suddenly 

 opened to their invasion, might be able to discover hitherto unknown deposits, 

 and by the application of rational methods raise the production to its utmost 

 capacity. If to this we add the mystio nimbus, which surrounded the country, 



