434 Japanese Mines , [October, 
it gets the upper hand, and how the number of abandoned 
mines comes to be so large. 
Coal-mines occupy the most important place among the 
mining industries of Japan, and the best developed and 
most productive of these is undoubtedly in the small island 
of Takashima, some io miles from Nagasaki. Up to 1868 
this mine produced but a small quantity of coal, owing to 
the defective system of mining pursued by the natives, viz., 
working the seam from its highest level, where the coal 
strata crop up to the surface, and following it downwards in 
the direction of its dip. Since that time, however, the mine 
has been worked under foreign superintendence, the result 
being a vast improvement in the amount and quality of the 
output. The district of Karatsu, to the north of Nagasaki, 
contains several coal-mines, little inferior to the foregoing, 
which are still worked in the native manner, and of one of 
which we will give a brief description. The road to these 
mines runs inland to a distance of nearly 9 miles from the 
town, passing up a valley of singular beauty and richness, 
from 1 to 3 miles wide, hemmed in by mountains, most of 
which are clothed with luxuriant forests to their very sum- 
mits : the lowland is all well cultivated, and produces rice 
and cotton ; while along the foot of the mountains wheat, 
millet, beans, and the paper-tree grow in great quantities. 
The river which runs through this valley, nearly parallel to 
the road, is a regular mountain stream, with a broad bed 
and little depth of water, but it is just sufficient to float the 
small flat-bottomed boats carrying the coal down to the sea. 
The mine, visited by Mr. Plunkett, has but one entrance, 
viz., an adit bored through the rock, about 4 feet wide and 
3J feet high, carried down at an angle of 56° until it reaches 
the seam of coal about 100 yards from the entrance. The 
mode of working the coal and getting it up to the surface is 
very peculiar. The miners work lying on their sides or 
backs, and never can stand up. The coal is removed with 
small picks and wedges driven in with a hammer ; it is then 
placed on small oblong bamboo baskets, each holding rather 
more than 1 cwt., provided with iron runners, which just fit 
the wooden sides of the ladder, laid along the floor of the 
entrance adit. This forms a kind of rude tramway, by 
which the baskets are hauled up to the surface. They are 
drawn by boys, apparently not more than 12 or 14 years old, 
who crawl on all-fours, harnessed to the basket by a very 
short yoke, — so short, indeed, that even when out of the 
mine, and dragging their loads across to the coal-yard, they 
are still obliged to crouch in the same painful manner. 
