Revieics — 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 tbeir positions 
at Yarious deptbs beneatb tbe surface. One of the maps, a sketch 
of tbe 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 anywkere eise. On the whole 
there is no Geological Survey witk 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- 
iug to small decimals of a foot, and the distances of one Observation 
froin another are often mentioned in the number of paces actually 
stepped, besides stating larger measurements and those of quantity 
in botli English and Japanese terms. The angles and directions of 
aips and strikes are profusely recorded, and even the forrns 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 form of a traveller’s journal, 
abounding witk remarks upon the topograpky, forests, water power, 
hotels, horses, weather, inhabitants, the customs, schools, spelling 
and pronunciation of Japanese names, political economy, in short 
nearly everything a tonrist in a stränge land would observe. 
Throughout, though geological features receive attention largely, the 
practical mining engineer as an observing medium is very evident. 
Considerable space is devoted to Coal-fields, as a matter of course, 
the carriage and shipment of the mineral, with numerous tables, 
showing the Constitution of the various beds, and we leam 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 fii’teen wide. The 
suialler hole is full to within perhaps live feet of its brim, with a 
dark brownish-gray, muddy-looking liquid, which is boiling violent ly 
and spouting upwards for several feet in great commotion, and 
sending out heavy fumes of sulphur that liide the view much of the 
time. The liquid would appear to be nothing but melted sulphur ; 
in the whole brauch 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 
