1878.] 



The Magic Mirror of Japan. 



145 



the mirror very difficult to be amalgamated ; also that, in casting, the 

 lead comes to the surface and spoils the mixture. Zinc he also finds 

 has the same effect. But as a small amount of lead is required to be 

 inserted in the composition to prevent the metal from becoming too 

 brittle, the shirome or sulphide of lead and antimony is employed. 

 The chief sources of this shirome arranged in order of merit are the 

 provinces in the south of Japan, called — 



1. Iyo, in the island Skikoku, 



2. Shekishu, 



3. Choshu, 



4. Tosa, in the island Shikoku, 



but the shirome coming from the last province, Tosa, cannot be used 

 for mirrors, as it contains too much lead. 



The mirrors of the first quality are only manufactured on receipt of 

 a special order, and new mirrors of even the second and third qualities 

 are rarely found ready made. The ordinary stock of the shops con- 

 sists of mirrors of the fourth quality, in which there is no tin. The 

 absence of both tin and the Iyo shirome in the composition of the 

 fifth quality is found to make the mirrors give a pale reflection, from 

 the difficulty of amalgamation, and so the fifth composition is not 

 often used. 



The composition for the common mirrors is made at the copper mines 

 and forwarded to the various mirror foundries. Formerly the metal 

 for mirrors was extensively prepared at Kioto, but the trade is dying 

 out now, and is said to have been slowly diminishing for the last 

 hundred and thirty years, at the commencement of which period it 

 had reached its maximum. 



Moulds for Mirrors. — The most striking feature of the moulds is that 

 ivhile practically all Japanese mirrors are convex, the surface of each half 

 of the mould is quite flat. The material used for making the mould is a 

 mixture of a special kind of clay (found near Tokio and Osaka) with 

 water and straw-ash. Two suitable slabs having been formed from 

 this plastic compound with the aid of wooden frames, a thick layer of 

 half liquid mixture of powdered old crucibles, or of a fine powder 

 called to-no-Jco, made from a soft kind of whetstone, is spread on them. 

 The design for the back of the mirror is then cut directly on one half 

 of the mould, or a sketch drawn on paper is first stuck on and used as 

 a guide in cutting the design in the clay. Sometimes, but rarely, the 

 design is stamped in the clay with a pattern wood-block cut in relief 

 like the proposed back of the mirror. After the design is complete a 

 rim of the same material as that used in the construction of the mould, 

 and having a thickness equal to that desired for the mirror, is attached 

 to one half of the mould. The two halves are then dried in the smoke 

 of a pine tree fire, pressed and tied together, and laid in the casting 



