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, In the General Report on the Geology of Voson. Page 68, line 16 from bottom, for 4-70 feet read ■■ 4'70 feet, 4-30 feet. „ 71, „ 14,/or 2,085,000 rfarf: 2,035,000. — 1- GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF JAPAN. Report on the Second Year's Progress of the Survey of the Oil Lanhs of Jai'ax ; by Benjamin Smith Lyman, Chief (Geologist and Mining Engineer. To His Excellency II. ITO, Acting Miiiislcr of Piihlir JVorhs, Sir, I beg to niBke the following report on the progress of the second yciu' of the .survey of the Oil Lands of Japan, ending willi the montli of January, 1878. Owing to changes in Ihe Government our survey was transfei'red from the Monie Department to the Public Works Department about the begiuniug of the year. The number and duties of the iissisiants remained. unchanged except that Mr. S. Misawa who had been with us in the Yosso suivey, was again formally made my assistant; but he has never yet been able to leave the hospital, and in the middle of December was allowed to resign. I am however still hoping (hat we may soon regain his very valuable services. Of the other assistants, Mr. Taka- hashi had occasion eaily in the year to change his name to Sugiura. I maj' add, to prevent misunderstanding, that Ihe Mr. Saka of some of our Yesso reports is the same as the Mr. Ban of my report of last year. The assistants, aside from my clerk Jlr. Adachi, were in Yedo engaged in office work the whole year except — 2— from 9th July until about the middle of October ; and during that interval they were surveying in the country or travelling, in five diffei'ent parties ; as foUovira : Messrs. Yamauchi, Yamagivpa, M. Maeda and Akiyama made a survey of the small oil field near Iwada in Mishima-goori, Echigo, and joined it to the survey of Messrs. Inagaki and S. Maeda of the previous year near Miyoohooji ; and afterwards joined together the former year's surveys of the Tateno, Tomikura, Wakui, Sekiguchi-shinden, Numa- shinden, Hnrumi, Kajii-o, Shibatsu, Nishijon, Uematsn, Sharishinkooji Oil Lands, and returned to Yedo l)y 23rd October. Messrs. Inagaki and S. Maeda extended and completed the field work of their survey near Kanadzu, in Kambaragoori, Echigo ; reaching Yedo again 4th October. Messrs. Kuwada and Nishiyama made surveys of the more important of the small oil fields in Akita Ken, namely : Menagata Midzusawa, Hunagawa, Masugawa, Nigori- kawa, Yabase, Kurokawa, "Riuge, Tsukinoki, Kamioguni, Iseichi, Yokooka, uniting some of them together ; and arrived again in Yedo on 31st October. Messrs. Sugiura and Ban made a survey of the oil field near Sagara in Tootoomi, and also visited a newly discovei'edgas place at Hikoji village half a league south-west of Nissaka on the Tookaidoo in Kitogoori, Tootoomi, and came back to Yedo 22nd October. Messrs. Kada and Shimada finished their survey of the former year at Matsuyama in Echigo and somewhat enlarged it, as far as to luukoda ; and arrived home again 23rd September. Each party was instructed to finish at least the skeleton plotting of their surveys before returning ; and accordingly did a larger share of office work while in the country than they had done in the exceptionally fine weather of the year before. Most of the parties travelled merely over roads already seen by themselves or by me, and consequently did not have particular occasion to undertake any new observations. Messrs. Kuwada and Nishiyama, however, went north by way ofNikkeo, Yamagataand Sakata; and came back under my advice, by way of the Innai and Handa silver mines for their instruction, but delayed only a few -3— liours at either place. They were also specially charged on their return with observing the geology and topography of the region (niversed, so far as it was new to us ; us likewise Messrs. Inagaki and S. Maeda were in regard to llieir return by the Tsiichidarugoe or Pass near the Shimidzu Piims, ncnih-cusl of tiie Mikuni Pass. For my own ]iarl, with Mr. Adachi I was travelling fnnn :2nd until 17th May, and from 13th July until 8th l)('<(;iiibc!r ; and the rest of llic time we were in Ycdo enffii,ij;cd npcin office work. Ill tlio hliorler journey in May we visited the oil and f;as places in Tuotoonii (or Kushiu); and in tiie other journey made a circuit throuf,'li the norlh-east, north-west and middle of the island of Kippon, from Morioka iu Nanilm and the northern end of Akita Ken to L;ike Biwa, and from llio whole lino of the western coast totlieNaka- sendoo, Kooshiukaidoo, Osliiukaidoo and the sea coast at Kamaislii ; going particularly to tlie oil places of Akita, Slioonai and Kichiu and some of those in Shinano not seen by me the year before, and, as we piissed, visitiug the diiFeieut parties of assistants, except those in Tootoo- mi and Matsuyamn. Office work. — Our daily attendance upon duty while iu Yedo will he seen from tho following table. Xame. Present. Absent. Wlu,h Xn. of working days. ^''jimii\i(ilii 100 195 191 169 227 127 182 180 205 188 188 172 150 152 103 24 4 35 2 77 47 23 14 ( 15 31 203 Tiiiifiiki 219 Iviiwada 195 Siifinrn 204 229 Bjui 204 229 203 219 X ishi vftttia 195 203 203 Adaclil 150 Lymau 152 — 4— There were during the year no holidays beyond the usual weekly and scattered single ones, and ten days at New Year's. During the season of field work the absences from duty were only some thirteen days by Mr. Yamauchi, owing to weak eyes ; and five working days by me. It will be seen that (excepting Messrs. Misawa, Adachi and my- self) the attendance in Yedo has been nearly six-sevenths of the whole time ; comparing favourably with former years, and (I believe) with other offices ; but slill leaving much to be desired. In addition, the assis- tants through the greater part of the spring season commonly stayed iu the office about an hour beyond the stated office hours in order to receive a lesson from me in Physics, and, besides, worked much additional time in the evening iu writing up their notes of the same. Of the time spent by myself iu office I kept a record (though it can hardly be admitted that the work of a manager can be estimated so suictly by the hour, since often the best of such work is done in moments of apparent idleness), and find on counting up the number of hours while in Yedo and while at office work in the country that there were 101 hours or three weeks and two days, or a daily average of about 40 minutes of such additional work, to which may be added about four months of extra work done in travelling, according to the rule of five leagues a day during inspection tours (like my long trip), and ten leagues during journeys without inspection by the way (as the trip to Tootoomi was reckoned) ; making, then, nearly five months of extra labour done within the yean The office work of the assistants has been chiefly the mapping of their surveys. Mine has been the over- sight of theirs, advising them when any difficulty arose, and generally the management of the office and the carrying on of its correspondence with the government. Under the general rules in regard to purchase of imple- ments and ^he like while in Yedo, the labor of such cor- ~5— respoudence is altogether greater than the petty amount of our outlays woul^ lead an outsider to suppose. As the assistants' mapping through the whole spring sea- sou hud not advanced to the main geological part and was in general free from any difSculties too great for tlicm, I had leisure left to give them some lessons, which they had long heen greatly in need of. I took Lardner's Natural Philosopiiy, a book extremely well suited to their wants, tliough ratlier out of date in the edition we had, and iec- tiuod to tiiCMi fiom it, trying in some measare to bring it up to tlie times as far as the more essential defects were concerned and to suggest illustrations from our own work and instruments. Having four and five years ago experi- enced the v(!ry serious drawback of giving tliera lessons through an interpreter, I this time in spite of my very imperfect familiarity with the language gave llie lessons ia Japanese. Tbe assistants most kindly endured with patience the numerous faults of speech, and took the mean- ing with such readiness as was possible ; and the result poor as to be sure it was, yet was far more satisfactory than that oi' talking indirectly through an interpreter, with all its delays and with the certainty of frequent grave misunder- sdmdiiigs in his attempt to interpret off-bnnd concerning matters nut at all well understood by himself. In such les- sons-, to keep up the attention and constant care in taking and revising notes, the assistants are always strictly re- quired at least once a week to show a neatly written com- pleted copy of their notes. We were able in that way to go very tlioroughly through the whole volume of about 750 pages and to give the assistants a fair uiiderstniiding of even the most recondite points of the treatise, and to impress them passably well on their memory. The lessons, 74 in number, were given from 6th February until 27th June, about five days in each week ; and began some twenty minutes before the end of the regular of5ce hours and commonly lasted about an hour and a quarter, but sometimes longer. I regret extremely that the assis- tants, owing to so much practical occupation have had and atill have no better opportunities for getting good — 6— information in various accessory branches of learning ; but they are not altogether idle in such matters, and give a portion of their leisure hours to studies of that kind with the help of books. Among the labors to be attended to in the spring sea- son was the seeing through the press and the proof correcting of the General Eeport on the Geology of Yesso and the Report of Progress of the first year of the Oil Survey. They both came out in April, and copies of them were to some extent distributed in the course of a couple of months. Many of the maps of the Yesso Sur- vey are yet unpublished, but the more important ones are getting piiiited as fast as the veiy limited opportuni- ties here peimit. It is perhaps best to say here a few words in explanation of some criticisms of our Yesso work lliat you may have seen in the valuable English periodical called the Geolo- gical Miigazine (November, 1877, pp. 522-526). The reviewer is so kind as not only to give well merited praise to the capacity shown by our assistants but to make many friendly and flalteriug remarks about our labors, the maps and reports, for which I cannot be too grateful. Nevertheless, I trust it may not seem too much like com- plaining that my cake is not all sugar, if in hopes of removing serious misconceptions, I venture to answer one or two sentences that he has found occasion to insert. Among other things he says : " Sections across the coal beds are frequently given, showing synclinal and anticlinal curves, the forms of which need not as a general rule be necessarily those assumed for them from observations on the dips taken at the surface." I have been greatly at a loss to account for such a sweeping stroke, considering the extreme pains that had been taken both by the assist- ants and by myself under mutual observation and criti- cism to have such curves not merely " as a general rule" but in every case correspond exactly with the observed dips (so far as the observations were trust- worthy) ; and it was rarely indeed outside of very narrow limits that the oorrespondence was auythiug but a —1- " necessary " one. Often not necessary to be sure from the dips that enter into any one section, but from a con- sideration of them and of liie dips of tiie neighbouring sections likewise. It lias however occurred to me that the wi'iler of the article may possibly have overlooked the fact that the dip on the snrfiice line of a cross section is veiy often necessarily different fi'om the corresponding observed "dip at a different level and at some little distance from the line of seolion. If he should compare the ob- served dip with the dip at the same level in the sect'on (supposing the dip paniliel to the section as is commonly the case) he will lam sure find ''as a general rule" a complete agreement. He speaks also of onr having on our maps "what seem to be rather speculative lines to mark, not merely the out- crops of the important beds, but also their positions at various depths beneath the surface." The degree to which the lines are speculative has in every case been pretty clearly indicated on the maps themselves by the words " probable " or " conjectured, " and depended in great part upon the presence or absence of observed rock ex- posures. A man unacquainted with the topographical method of geological surveying might imagine it to be wholly impossible to give with any probability whatever the position of outcrops and underground beds of rock ; but such mapping is not merely guesswork or "specula- tive," it is nothing less than a geometrical construction on paper of the forms indicated by the scattered rock ex- posures, and has in America been used successfully by three or four individuals for more than a quarter of a century as a means of ascertaining the position of out- crops or underground beds preparatory to opening them. Of couise unobserved small irregularities or variations of dip may take away the quality of absolute certainty from such m.ippiug ; but in some regions the course of the rocks is comparatively regular. For example, in one case in Cape. Breton such a map (by Professor J. P. Lesley and myself, fifteen years ago) indicated to the local mine superintendent, who was planning a shaft, that ~8— the bottom of a certain coal bed would be 180 feet deep at a certain point about three quarters of a mile from its nearest exposures on either side (exposui'es identified as part of the same bed by the very methods in question); and on boring he found, it to be 182 feet deep. In Professor Lesley's long experience numerous striking eases of the kind have occurred ; and the method has been of far more frequent use in successfully identifying or opening coal or ore beds where the distance from pre- viously known exposures is not so great as in the instance just described. Not only are beds identified, but the rela- tive geological position of different beds in scattered ex- posures is made out, and trustworthy columnar sections made possible where otherwise there could only be conjecture. The criticisms quoted above seem rather to confirm- what I have suspected and already intiinated, that our method of surveying. is well understood by extremely few, even among geologists. So far as I know, it is practised by hardly fifteen or twenty in the whole world, and of them a dozen are Japanese and the rest Americans. It seems to me therefore all the more necessary to speak re- peatedly of the advantages of a method that is so much neglected, on account perhaps of its laboriousness, but that on the whole so well repays the trouble it requires. It seems to me to be not merely a kind of geological survey- ing, but the only kind of it that deserves the name of practical geology (or geognosy). The mere insertion of a few dips here and there on the best map of a country that can be found already in existence (and generally such maps are on far too small a scale, or are too iuexact for working out geological details of much value), or coloring such maps to show tlie general relative arrange- ment of whole groups of rocks, or measuring exposed rock sections here and there, are iu general comparatively easy processes, important as they sometimes are, and are but the simplest, lowest stages of the method I wish to extol. In those processes it has been common to depend greatly upon the presence, and character of fossils includ- —9— ed In tlie vooks (there being little else to depend on) for identifying groups of beds (for single beds they are com- monly loo uncertiiin a ineiniM); and geology so called has tlierefdio beconio in vciy many cases almost a mere study of fossils, or paleontology. It is a study undoubtedly of great interest and value, but especially so as leading to a better underslandini^ of tlie history, nature and mutual relationship of organized beings. For the identification of neigbl)oriug exposures of tlie same bed, the presence and character of fossils as well as lidiological resemblances or other peculiarities, such as tlie relative thickness and position of different layers, are useful and are not to be rejected in the tojiographical method ; but for tliat no profound knowledge of paleontology is required, and the fossils alone are commonly not sure guides. For identifying whole groups even, the topographical method in its nioro or less simple forms is usually the easiest and most satisfactory in studying (he rocks of one country. But for comparing the rock groups of one country with those of another, widely sojiainled from it by (be ocean or by un- explored laiul, fossils gi\e mncli tlio bes( means ; and even tiieir indications are lo some degree uiiceitain in sneli a ease, owing to the ]iossiliility that like groups of animals and plants may informer times not have inhabited widely different parts of the globe at the same (inic ; just as there is at present some important diversity of character, and that not wholly cliiiiati(% in the animals and plants of different quarters of (lie world, and those of some regions appear lo resemble those tliat have been studied from wliat may have been called a certain past age more than those of other regions do. Moreover the identification of such distant groups iu a broad way, though interesting, . is ajipareiitly of no very great immediate practical utility, ill the way for example of showing what minerals are likelv to be included in the groups of a new region ; and such a sufficiently close identiticatiou of broad groups does not commonly require any very detailed paleontological research. It is also interesting and sometimes perhaps important to know whether given beds of rock are marine —10— beds or fresh-water ones ; but a very thorough study of fossils is not necessary for that so far as they can decide the question at all. While therefore a knowledge of the relative superposition of beds, h very essential result of the topographical method in one form or another, and other- wise unattainable with certainty, is of great importance to the study of the relations of fossils, it is clear that fossils give far less sure, far less necessary, and far less valuable aid to geology. It would be absurd to write this in order to claim extraordinary merit for being one of tlie very few who have had some special experience in using the topographical method ; for its use does not require exceptional ability. On the other hand having happened by mere accident to be of that small number it would have been blameworthy to fail to see the great advantages of the method and fail to insist upon its importance. There can hardly be any danger but that its value will be recognised by practical men of business in the long run, for by no other method can unexposed beds or veins of coal and ore or beds holding oil be opened or their extent within given bounds be calculated with any certainty at all. The critic also says : " A great want is that of geologi- cal sections showing the structure of the island, aud the manner in which the diiferent groups succeeded each other and this is the more strange because it would appear that ample materials for rough ones at least have been collected." In my opinion it would have been useless with the materials at command to attempt any sections across the island. The dips ascoilained are almost exclusively along the bounding seacoHst line except in the Ishcari coal surveys ; and in making a section almost anywhere across the whole island no observed dips could be inserted to show on the li(ie of section the relative inclination of the rocks, their conforniability or unconformability. Moreover the profile of (he surface of the ground in such a section would be almost everywhere mere guesswork. Cross sections that would be in almost e.very part necessarilly so purely con- —11— jcctural wonld be, it seems to me, no better in efTect than the columnar scclion which already shows at the side of the d from a point some feet higher up, so that after digging a little deeper without increased success the well was considered complete. Again, the depth of the differ- ent points was given in fathoms, and it is known that although the fathom may be taken as six feet near the top of the well it is very apt to be reckoned much shorter on digging deeper, so that five feet fol- instance, may sometimes be the real fathom. The rocks too although very closely observed and separately named for very small differences by the well diggers would appear either to be diversely named within very short distances or not to be very constant in such minute characteristics. Consequently it became in many places, where observed dips were lacking, very difficult to make out the geological structure from the sections of the wells, especially in places much disturbed by small and sharp folds in the rocks ; but in other places the result has been pretty satisfactory. It is probable (as we have already found to be the case in Tootoomi) that in the more doubtful spots a renewed search for rock ex- posures and dips (if necessary, with the help of a little digging) where they are particularly needed for clearing up the obscurities will meet with good success. In some places for a considerable distance tho oil seems to come from certain tbiu layers or seams lu the >'Ook, which correspond well in relative position in whole -13- gioiips of well» and in neighbouring groups. Probably the oorrespondeuce would be mucli better, if the record of the wells had been more exact. But in each rogion, so far, the oil has been found to come wholly from a comparatively small thickness of rock bed.«, say 200 feet or at most (in Tootoomi) 400 feet ; except that at Matsuyama there is a secondary smaller group of oil lieuring beds. T)ie geology of the Tateiio region has not yet been worked out. Although there may be some ditti- cidty, then in defining accurately the pi ice of separate thin layers and seams rich in oil, there will apparently be iu general no serious trouble in ascertaining with some precision the position and outcrop of so large a group of bods as one 200 feet in thickness containing oil bearing layers here and there throughout it, and that for some little distance from the present wells ; so as to widen essentially the field of well digging operations and give them much greater certainty than they have hitherto had. Of course the same group of rock beds may be rich in oil at one point and grow gradually poorer to absolute barrenness at a distance ; and it would therefore be safest to dig the wells only gradually further and further from the spots already known to be rich in oil. However in Echigo, it may be possible to know the position of the oil bearing rocks throughout the somewhat long spaces between the different groups of wells of each large region, and by sinking a well or two iu the middle of such a space find out whether the beds are rich there too and consequently probably continuously so. It seems already very likely indeed that the space for well digging will be much enlarged by our surveys and the certainty very greatly increased. Some idea, by the way, of the profit of oil wells may bo got from the following apparently trustworthy table which was kindly given me in January last, and more lately corrected, by Mr. N. Sakuma, a Yedo merchant who is interested in the Tootoomi oil wells. Supposing a well to be 300 feet deep and to have been dug iu three months at a cost of 300 eu (^about the average —14— depth, time and cost, it is said) ; the yearly expenses and income in drawing out the oil, refining it, putting it in cans, carrying it to market and selling it ai e reckoned as follows for an average yield of five shoo (two gallons) a day or a harrel (koku) and a half a month or 18 hbls. a year. Expenses : En. Drawing out 18 bbls oil @ 4lTVcr sen 7-418 Carriage of 1 8 bbls oil from well to refinery @ 41-A% sen for 1 horse load of 8 too 8-359 Refining 18 bbls oil @ SSfW 15-993 Amount of distilled products, 90 per cent 16-2 bbls. Ckoku) Loss in distilling 10 per cent... 1-8 bbls. (koku) Number of cans, @ 1 too each.. 162 cans „ „ cases, one for two cans 81 cases 162 old- tin cans @ lOiW sen 17-383 81 wooden cases ferage selling price are : Naplitha 3-24 bbls. @ 3-00 en. a case 48-600 White oil ....11-14 „ (g 3-30 „ „ 184-140 Heavy oil.... I'SO „ @ 2-00 ], „ 18-000 250-740 Yeaily income ; 195-733 Monthly income 16-311 If we suppose ihen that the well keeps up the average yield of two gallons 5 shoo during 18 months and 11 days, the first cost of tlie well (300 en) would be recovered if we leave the interest on tbe capital out of account.. But considering the value of money in Japan and the unavoid- able uncertainties of oil wells one and a half per cent a month is the very least interest that ought to be reckoned ou. The monthly iuterest then on 300 en would be 4"50 -15- en, amounting in fhe three months of digging the well to 13'50 en which would make the cost of the finished well 313'50 en. We should have then : Monihly gross iiiooiue 16'311 Monthly interest on 313-50 en @ 1^ 7^ 4702 Remainder 11 '509 which could lie applied to extinguishing the capital, and would accomplish tliiit result (bearing in mind that with the gradual diminution of the capital the interest charge would be less every mouth) in about 23 months. It must also be remembered Unit in ihe 300 en of cost some ineideiitiil expenses are not counted, such as managers' Kularies, office expenses, rent to land owners and other items. Of course there would be a slight advantage in the fact that the oil well would at first, aiul especially for the first month or two, yield more than the average ; in that way lessening somewhat more than proportionately the amount of the subsequent interest eliarfre. The average yield of a well has never been very exact- ly ascertained ; but from information gathered for me in May, 1877, by Mr. Adacbi, it appears that out of the 53 wells, that had then been dug nine (or one sixth of the wliole number) had been quite barren, and ten had ceased to yield, and the 34 others in April, 1877, yielded 78"2 lbs. (koku), or an average of 24 too (or 96 gallons) to each well, or a daily average of 3 iV gallons (about 7f shoo); and the greatest daily yield of any one well in that month was 5'2 gallons (1'3 too). Of the 44 wells that had yielded oil the greatest first yield had been 42 bbls in a day ; and the average daily yield at first was 6t t'^'-(27f gallons). If we consider the 34 yield''>^--igjiTc;is to be equally dis- tributed through all stages h^progress so as to represent one well in as vnK^j uiffcrcnt stages and allow one sixth for wel' »"iginally barren we should get as the average yield of a well ]9i too (76t gallons) a mouth, or 61 shoo (about 2i gallons) a day. As the wells are not evenly distributed throughout all stages of progress, and the newer one.'? aru more numerous than the older ones, it —16— might be supposed that the average just obtained would be too high ; but the whole number is too small to give so very exact a result and the older wells, as it is happens, really neither dimiuish noriiicrease the average perceptibly. The average daily yield of a well then, as near as we can judge, would appear to have been (roughly) about five pints (If shoo) or 28 per cent, in excess of the five shoo of the well of which the table reckoned the outlay and income. That excess would amount in the 23 months to 9'66 bbls. (koku) which would give, according to the table, an additional income of 8 '76 en, or nearly three per cent, on the capital of 300 en originally invested, or about one and a half per cent a year for the two years (26 months) from the beginning of the outlay. Again, supposing (somewhat incorrectly) that the 34 yielding wells are the ones that remain from a series whose dates of beginning were uniformly distributed from the outset, the average time from first beginning to yield unlil April, 1877, would give a rough idea of the average age of a well or of the length of time throughout which one well would daily yield the 6f shoo of oil. From the time of beginning to dig each of the 34 wells until the mid- dle of A pril, 1 877, the average period is about 38 months, from which subtracting three mouths as the supposed average time needed for the digging (and likely enough owing to interruptions in the work the time was longer than tliat), we have 35 months (at the most) as the average length of the period of tire average yield. That is just a j'ear in excess of the 23 months hitherto calculated and the average yield for a whole year should, then, be added to what has alreafly been reokoned. The net income for one year would a:mount, <.coiUi:.|ig j^ jj^g table, for a daily yield of 6| shoo to 250-53| en,- ..v _about 83^ per cent, of the original capital, which added to the c."?fi gn or three per cent, already found in excess of the requireu -.o ,,„,. cent, would make 259-30 en or about 86^ per cent, of tlu'"^ first capital. Out of this sum (it must not be forgotten) are to be paid the " company's expenses" not counted"iTi the table, such as the salaries of managers and agents. -17- office expenses, rent to village landowners (formerly reckoned at five por cent, of the crude oil), government tax or royalty, loss ofoilliy drying np or leakage (once estimated at five percent.) ami ,'ill other incidental expenses and contingeiK'ips aside from the mere contract cost of digging the wells. Probably those expenses inclnding interest up to the time of their repayment wonld amount to at least as mnch as seven en a month for each well (or seventy en for ten wells) or about one-third of the gross income ; so that a little more tlian the whole of the 259 en would be swallowed np in 3S months ; and the final result of the enterprise wonld therefore be equivalent to the return of the capital and its interest at 1-| per cent., during the 26 months. Considering, then, the commercial unrnn-tninties of working oil wells, quite iu addition to the gpoloijionl and indiistriiij ones just now considered, the whole business can at present Iiardly be considered liy any means equivalent in profit to a moderately well secured loan at 18 per rent, a year. The selling price of the "white oil" iu the table (3-30 en) is rather higher than the reiil a\erage in Yokohama for the four months from Fobnmry to May, 1878, which according to the weekly newspaper r(>ports was about $3.13 ; but is lower llian Ibe Mverase for the year from June, 1877, to May, 1H7S, which according to the same reports was al)oul .*.'!. .'iS. It is however very pro- bable that those averages are eslinmted too high ; for it is likely that the sales at the higher prices of the weekly reports are much smaller than those at low ones, though there is no statement to that effect, and the average price brought l)y the whole quantity sold in four months or in a year would therefore be lower than the averages just given. The fluctuations in price are very great, some- times twenty-five per cent, within two weeks ; and it is impossible to judge with much probability in advance whether the present average price will be maintained for another half year. The price depends wholly upon the supply from abroad ; since the product in Japan is but a small portion of what is consumed here. —18— Inereased profit would seem to depend in great part upon digging the wells at an average less cost than the 300 en each (making them in general, then, less than 300 feet deep, or else by impnivement in the lighting or other details malting the worlc more rapid and still cheaper than now) ; or in more seldom digging them quite unsuccessfully ; orin obtaining from theraagreater average yield than 2^ gallons (6f shoo) a day during 35 months ; or in refining the oil at less than the cost estimated above ; or in getting a better price for the oil than the 3'30 en. We hope by our surveys 'and maps lo show the outcrops and position of the oil bearing beds with such exactness that the number of wholly unsuccessful wells will be fewer ; that their depth may not be unnecessarily great, and that their averaj^e yield mny be as large as possible. Under such circumstances we trust that with very econo- mical management there may be a reasonable profit in working the wells. But the item of expense that is open to by far the great- est improvement is the cost of the first cajiital ; for, if the capital could be borrowed at a comparatively low rate, at six per cent, a year, for example, there would be great inducement to undertake the necessary risks in order to obtain the eighteen per cent, of profit (and monej' entrusted by shareholders to the managers of a company in hopes of gain is in most respects like money leijt for interest). A like remark would apply to every other form of industry as well as to the working of oil wells ; and it is evident that the greatest obstacle to industrial progress in this co>mtry is the dearness of money. It is very important, then, to consider why money is so dear and what are the steps to be taken in order to make it cheaper. The cost of borrowed money depends partly of com-se like the price of any other commodity on the supply ill comparison with the demand ; and that might at first be supposed to be the only cause that makes money dear here. Yet it is incontestable that a very much larger supply exists than is made use of, and that even extrava- gantly high rates of interest are insufficient to draw from —19— tbtir hiding places hoards of money, that in many cases arc loiisiili ruble in themselves, and that in the aggregate would ainoiiiit to a vast hum. The reason is clearly to hv found in tlu' special force of the well known fact that "a high rate lA' interest is only iiuothcr niiine for insecurity. Men natural- ly prefer lo lei their money lie idle rather than to run the risk, of losing it by lending, unless the expected pro- fit is very fiieiit indeed ; and it is declared by everybody in Japan that the experience of some years past (and per- haps still more so of former times) has been extremely iiniaxurable to eonlidence in lending capital. Such loans they say have almost invariably been lost, either through friiud with the help of the new bankrupt laws, or through the gross lack of business skill in the borrowers. It is in vain to iiope to remedy such evils by conceal- ment or by avoiding their consideration, or by the enact- ment of laws against high rates of interest. Laws of that kind cannot force men to lend money ; and, if the legal rate be too low, the money will either be left idle, or will be lent at a rate high enough to cover the risk of suifering the penalty of the law in addition to the other risks of the loan ; money will be lent at the legal rate only in the cases where the security would of itsell' be sufficiently good to justify it. Something may be urged in favour of bankrupt laws that shall protect debtors of innocent intentions against merciless pursuit from their sutteriug creditors, and that shall throw upon the lender the burden of considering at least the risk that miiy arise from the unintentional mistakes or misfortunes of his borrower, and that shall relieve the government so far as may be from the expense of punish- ing insolvent del)tors without hope of immediate advan- tage. But it must be admitted that it is hardly possible for the government to take too much pains to prevent fraud on the part of borrowers of money, that it is in fact as necessary to prevent such fraud as it is to prevent loss of property by theft or otherwise. It is therefore of the utmost and most direct importance to the oil working mi Other iudustrial interests of the country that the —20— courts of justice should be of the greatest purity, aad that the laws against fraud as well as against the impro- per alienation or destruction of property in other ways should be of the wisest character possible, and that the means of detecting fraud should be perfected to the high- est degree. One of the most valuable and effective of those means is a proper way of writing up money accounts ; and the introduction of tbe best modern methoils of book keeping, already begun, cannot be pushed forward too rapidly. Under the old extremely imperfect system, a fraud could neither be very clearly detected nor an accusation of it very satisfactorily disproved ; all was uncertainty, beyond what reliance might be placed in the personal integrity of the individual to whom money was entrusted. In such a state of things the very idea of integrity or probity must necessarily have been comparatively vague, the sense of pride in possessing it or of shame in lacking it must have been comparatively blunt ; because eiiber fact could not be known with much certainty to any one, and there must consequently have been wanting not only pefectly well grounded reputation, or the respect of others, I'ut its highly useful reaction on a man's self- respect and character. Moreover, under the old loose methods of accounts, quite aside from all ques- tions of integrity, there must have been in a business man's own mind comparative obscurity as to the state of his affairs, as to the profits or losses of any parti- cular branch of his concerns ; so that, although special genius might overcome such obstacles, mercantile skill and prudence must have been much less likely to exist. Most happily, then, the same excellent means that tends very greatly to prevent fraud by fticilitating i(s detection when it occurs, favors in a very high degree not only the for- mation of good business character, but also the acquire- ment of good business habits, prudence and skill, tending therefore in many ways to make capital more secure. If the laws and the courts are besides wholly satisfactory, U can hardly be doubted that money conld readily be — til— oblaiueU for oil working or for other industrial enler- prisL's. Indeed, so far as my observation goes the public seem already very eiiger to engage in oil and other mining enterprises, having if anything, only too sanguine liope-; in legiird to their success. I see therefore no need wLiiifcvci- lliat they should be encouraged to embark in such undertakings by the government's selling them the example, or lending them capital at very low interest, as il is sduiclinics nrged that they should. It is true that the government can obtain capital on much lower (crms thiiu most private individuals ; for its credit is good, men have faith in its persistent intention to repay what it borrows, and they are therefore willing to lend it a portion of their hoards that must otherwise lie idle or be entrust- ed to far less responsible parties. The fact, however, that industrial works should be undertaken under such specially favorable circumstances, instead of encouraging the public to make similar ventures, would tend rather to discourage all cflbrts on the part of outsiders to compete iu the same field ; so that the favored operators would, so far as home competition is concerned, liaxc pructienlly a monopoly, and, if thoy were private parties, would in human nature make the most of that advantage to the ultimate loss of the community at large. Hut even if the government's (or its favoured borrow- ers') competition in industrial and mercantile matters on terms so peculiarly advantageous, should not be deterrent to nil others who would like to become operators, there are very strong reasons why the government should avoid as far as possible the turning itself into a miner, manu- facturer or merchant. If industrial enterprises are manag- ed bv government salaried officials, however honest may be their intentions, the invaluable incentive of fear of hunger is lacking to make them (like private parties working with their own means) to the utmost degree cautious in the transaction of their business and eager to gain the greatest skill. They do not as the private operator Joes, give their whole hfe to learniug oue particular —22— branch of business ; but only temporarily take charge of affairs that really need a life long devotion. Con- sequently such government -works are extremely apt to be managed in a comparatively easy going way, even if not with downright dishonesty ; money from the ample store of the government is likely to be laid out either with too great freedom or with unskilful pai'simony, leading often into " a penny wise, pound foolish " course that is enormously wasteful both of opporiunties and of means. Such has always been I he experience in western countries, and there is no reason to suppose that circum- stances are especially favourable to very different results here. Even as a means of instructing the public in new or imperfectly known industries the exceptional cheapness of the capital employed would to a very great extent vitiate the teaching ; especially so if you consider also the fact that in government works the cost of labour is ai)t to be higher than in private ones. Tlie essential aim of engineering is to accomplish its ends with the greatest possible profit ; and of course the methods that are suit- able with cheap capitnl and dear laliour are quite different from those that are required by dear capital and clieap labour. For example engineering or industrial methods that are profitable in England or even in America may be wholly unsuited to Japan, where capital is much dearer and labour much cheaper, In those western coun- tries an outlay of cheap capital that will effect a saving of labour may often be advisable ; but here the cost of the same capital may be much (greater than the cost of the labour saved woidd be. In the same way cheap capital increases the desirableness of permanence and durability of consti'uction, where dear capital might advantsgeously accept the alternative of more frequent repairs and renewal. Truly skilful engineering, then, requires first of all a con- sideration of the relative cost of capital and labour, and cannot tolerate a blind following out of methods however well adapted they may have been found to be to the cir- cumstances of a different country. There would of course —23— be a like difference between the methods that should be followed here under the very unusual conditions of cheap capital borrowed by the f^oveniinent or from the govern- ment, iiiiil of tho nitli(M- ileur lal)0ur of government works, and those that should be followed under the ordinary con- ditions of the general public ; so tliat the practice in such favored entei-prises could not always serve directly as a piitlcrn for others. It miiy be urged (hat if llie nation through its govern- ment can borrow capital moi'e clieiiply than private indi- viduals Clin it might still be pvofilable on the whole to carry on all indiislries through tlie government. But tlie wealth of the richest government is insignificant in compai i- son with tbat of its subjects ; its credit would not enable it to borrow a tithe of what would gla[ 100°C. tolo6°C. „ , 34-4, 29-44 l.JO° „ ,,200° „ „ , 30-5 34-44 Above 200° C. „ „ 5-1 ll'SO Non volatile „ „ 9'2 21-98 100-0 10000 I may add that a specimen of oil said to be refined in Tootoomi extimined by him at ihe same time proved to be of very good qiialily and extremely safe, having its "flashing point" at 120 F. !ind its " Imruing point" at 138° F., both qnileas high as conld bo wished ; and I see MO reason to doubt that the sample wiis n fiir averao-e one of the lU'oduct of the Tootoomi i-efining. The oil is put mlo old " Devoe's cans ;" but evidently without the least idea of deoeptiou, aud merely because they cau be bought —Sl- at a lower price tlmn any other equally suitaljle receptncle. Bfsiiles tlio oil iiidiistiy, ferliaps seventy sncii days' work in a ycai- ; so Ihat Ihe wliole yearly pio- dnct of one parly wonid lie 14 kokn, or of all tlie 100 parties 1,400 kokn. That inclndes the beacii from Sii;,'.irii. abnnt a leagne southerly ; l)nt there is also salt made (I know not how much) to Ihe norlh ward towards Kawasaki a league distant. It is evident llnit salt making might create a small market for slone coal, !is wood does not seem to be very abundant in I bo region owing to the very wide open liara, and as coal could he brought by sen. 'I'he chief agricultural products of the neighborhood nre tea, next sugar (also needing fual) and of course rice. From Sagara I rolurned lo the Tookaidoo, at Nissaka a league and a half beyond Kanayn, and went to see the supposed traces of oil at Gembei and Tobikomizawa, about half a mile from Nissaka on the north side of the Too- kaidoo. At Gembei we could fiiul no trace nor smell of oil, but some particles of coal which seemed to be merely the remains of separate plants scattered through a soft greenish gray shale. At Tobikomizawa also I could per- ceive no smell of oil in the rock, though the guide fancied tliat he could a slight one, and he explained that as there was a cliff some 20 feet high of giay shale and sand rock there it had been thought that "such a cliff must exist for oil" — so sanguine had men been ! There was here also a very little coal, black and shining, probably the remains of only one small plant ; and perhaps the expectation of finding oil had been based on ils presence. The rocks at both places are no doubt of about the same age as the oil bearing rocks near Sagara, and as those of Echigo which —32— also contain a little coal in some places, black, shining " brown-coal," (in some places fibrous lignite), and as already mentioned probably do not differ greatly in age from tbe Tosbibets group of Yesso. From Nissaka we came, tben, along tbe Tookaidoo to Hujieda about 2^ leagues this side of Kanaya ; and I visited tlie two wells (ten fatboms and tbree or four fathoms deep) dug for oil about half a league apart in Yainaba, about a league and a half west of Hnjieda ; and one of the two wells (20 fathoms and . 40 fatboms deep) in Uchiseto, about a league and a half west south-westerly of Hnjieda. At all four places it was said that before digging (about 1875) there was a smell of oil, but no oil was found and even tbe smell disappeared (if it ever really existed). About half way between those places and Hujieda I also visited a place which bad been supposed to be a good one for an oil well, but where there was not the least sign of oil, not even a smell of it to be found ; the promising feature seeming to consist apparently in merely a good ex- posure of rock. Fortunately, no labor had been wasted there in digging. The rocks seen in all those villages were soft greenish gray sand rock weathering brown with dips of some 30° north-westerly and south-easterly ; and they belong probably to the same general group and age as the rocks of the Sagara oil field. From Yawiitabashi, on tbe Tookaidoo half a league this side of Hujieda, I went half a league off tbe road easterly to the village of Echigojima, where (about 1865) in a wide plain of New Alluvium, 600 yards from the nearest low bill, a well dug for water, wholly in soft alluvium, sent out gas that made a flame some six feet high above the ground. Tlie bole was filled up and tbe gas stopped issuing. Auotlier well eight fathoms deep was dug for water only six yards distant to the north without finding any gas. But at a house just across the road to tbe south a well dug about 1873 yielded gas in the same way and the flow was stopped by filling up. Such gas might con- veniently have been utilised in the way it already is in —33— T5cli!go, ai mentioned in my Report of Progress of last year j but (lie uncertainties in regard to tlie position and richness of tlio underlying rocks whicli no doubt liave yielded iIip dil fi'om wliicli (lie gas was fbrraeil, make it hardly ndvisalilp to ili;^ (Iph]i wells in senrcli of oil; tlie more so as prohaUly there would be some liindiance from wnter. It is extremely prolmblp, that, the nnduilying rocks and very likely those of the nci^^hhoring low hills also belong to the siinic age as those of the Sngara oil field. On the way home fiom Tonloomi we also in passing through Okitsu tour leagues this side of Shidzuokn gained pretty full and evidently quite trustworthy in- fiirmation from an nfliciiil, well ariinaintr-d with the facts about the so called oil place ol' llin.sc villarro in Sui'uga, about a league from Okitsii. It turned out that there was no (lil nor smell of oil tlicro, and the story of there being oil unilouhtodly originnlcd in the fiict that a little bed of coal about half a fool thick had been opened. It was iiig three-tenths ; that it had been mined for a length of half a league and in some places to a depth of twenty fathoms below water level, with little trouble from water though they have no pumps. Judging from the horse loads of copper brought out by the way of Nikkoo (until lately it had been sent out, by way of Jooshiu) the monthly product is about 1,000 kam- me (nearly four tons) ; the product of about 100 men's labor including furnace-men and charcoal burners ; an average, say, of twenty-five dollars a month to each man. If that be not a very exaggerated estimate the profit to each man must be uncommonly good, as compared with the other mines of the north. We were told also of the Sagebu silver lead mine, six leagues north-easterly from Nikkoo where the vein of galena was said to be two feet thick and to have been worked nine feet long by six high, apparently therefore a new and very important mine. So I took it on ray way forward ; but was much disappointed to find that it was an old mine worked to the length of 18 fathoms and abandoned so long ago that it is not known when, and lately reopened and that the vein had at the face of the old workings little or no ore though at the thickest point of the new workings near the mouth of the old drift it was 12 ft. thick, but not all pure galena, and —35- within three feet ouly about half as thick. The vein is vertical and runs about north-east and south-west. The lead is represented to yield four tenths of one per cent, of silver. At Kobiyaku village near by is an old copper mine worked some forty years ago and abandoned ; but taken up agsiiii in the spring of 1877. I did not go to it ; but it was said that the thickness of the vein could not well be made out, that the vein was vertical, running north and south, with yellow ore (copper pyrites), con- laininj; also gold and silver. The men of the neighbor- hood seemed to Ijo too sanguine to give their ancestors credit for intelligence enough to keep on working those old mines at a profit. Of course this reason and that are given why the mines weie abandoned in spite of being rich ; but if they had really been rich, it is hard to be- lieve, that they should not have continued to be worked ; for even if the owner had been temporarily in some distress, he could hardly have had a readier means of getting money than selling a mine that had a good re- putation; and in those old times too no doubt there were plenty of sanguine men to take hold of any such enterprise that had the least shadow of a promise of success in it. In those days, moreover, copper was probably more valuable and labor cheaper than they are now. Leaving the mountains therefore we returned to the main road in the wide plain at Ootawara ; and shortly be* fore reaching it found a fifty foot cliff of level bedded gray soft sand rock resembling that near Kanagawaj and theuce we pushed on northward, crossing among low hills, just this side of Shirakawa, the dividing ridge between the Touegawa plain and the less level valley of the Abu- kuma Rivei', which reaches nearly to Sendai. Indeed there were but low hills between short cross val- leys along the road oven beyond, until we reached the main valley of the Kitakami Elver, and that was pretty level within a moderate width as far as Mori- oka. From Nikkoo and Sagebu to the dividing lidge near Shirakawa we had at a little distance on our left high mouutaius apparently everywhere of OM —36— Volcanic rocks, and where we came out from the hills aacl entered them again there were a few rock exposures, and near the dividing ridge, a number of exposures of level bedded soft brown Old Alluvium, as it seemed, ap- parently derived from the volcanic rocks. From a couple of leagues this side of Shirakawa to beyond Nihommatsu, however, the rocks exposed were wliitisli gray, cliielly very soft, apparently a decomposing syenite falling into white sand with quartz grains, feldspar and hornblende ; much like what I atter\var out smell ; the Narigo seven springs, in the main village of that name, Tamatsukuri goori, southwest from Kawa- guchi ; also six more springs lower down in the same village, warmth not known, but all with white (sulphur) water except perhaps one. The rocks exposed here and there between Kawaguchi and Hosokura were a tufaceous pebble rock with green .pebbles, nut size and smaller, or a greenish gray very tough volcanic rock without pebbles ; and at the mines the country rock was a dark bluish gray fine grained trachytic porphyry. Tlie mines of Hosokuru were first opened, they say, about 1070 years ago (in the Daidoo epoch), and some years ago were very prosperous ; but having been worked to a good depth below drainage level have been nearly abandoned since 1872. At that time they had in the Kattaizan mine worked a mass of ore that is said to have been twelve feet thick, thirty fathoms long and 120 fathoms in height ; of which 20 fathoms were below water level, and were pumped by hand pumps. The mass was galena with about one fifth of zinc blende but without any gaugue. Above water level it was worked out thirty years ago or more. It is said that it was abandon- ed solely on account of the water, and that the ore did not lessen. In the Nakanomori mine there is also said to have been a mass of ore four feet thick, ten fathoms long and over 21 fathoms in depth, all below water level ; and likewise to have been abandoned in 1872 or 1873. The veins are numerous and their course is various. The north and south veins (four in number) are said to be the best ; the east and west ones (five) next best, besides many small uuwoikable ones ; the one vein north 30° east and south 30° west, third best ; and the four veins north 60° east and south 60° west, fourth best ; the rest (in two more directions) are all very thin veins and are not worked. All the good places in the veins are now far under water and therefore cannot be inspected ; and the only mining now done is a little gleaning here and there. The work- —43— ing is done mostly for one operator (Mr. Shimidzu) by 8J< workers in a population of 120 ; and the monthly pro- duct is 320 kamme (2667lbs) of lead, worth there about $116, and 150 me of silver worth about $20, in all about, $136, or about an average of $1*62 a month or say $19'41 a year to each ivorker. It was thought however that though life was just supported by the earnings in the summer, it could not be so in winter. There are, besides, some other woi'kers, two or three in a mine, but the little ore they find is sold and worked up at Mr. Shimidzu's furnace. The galena is smelted in a small furnace or hearth (now only one), about a foot and a quarter in diameter, with the addition of iron in the form of old coins. The charge is : ten kamme (83^ lbs.) of ore and the third (last) cake of slag from the preceding operation ; 2'8 kamme of iron coins, or 2'5 kamme of new iron ; 7 kamme of char- coal (costing eight sen a kamme). The operation lasts two hours, and there are three in the morning ; in the afternoon the hearth is repaired. The product is about six kamme of lead to each operation or 18 kamme a day. The lead (except the poorer part) is cupelled by two women on a hearth of common wood ashes ; and the litharge is afterwards reduced iigain to lead ; with a loss of 25 to 30 per cent, of lead in the whole process. As already seen the monthly product of silver (160 me) is about one half a tenth of one per cent, of all the lead (320,000 me). I hope to write a report more in detail of the mines and furnaces, but leave them here with only this little sketch of them. It is of course impossible to verify the stories of the extraordinary richness of the veins without a considerable outlay in drainingthe mines ; but if the stories be not exaggerations it would cerlaiuly seem worth while to set up pumps that would be more effective and much cheaper than the hand pumps formerly vsed. The smelt- ing operations are extremely interesting as agreeing closely in many respects with the processes of western countries, though they have apparently been handed down for mftuy generations and are the result of innumei- —44— able experiments made without any knowledge wtatevet of the chemistry involved, just as in a far longer period even the so called instinctive methods of the lower ani- mals have become so perfect as to agree (it has been re- marked) exactly with what the very wisest man would do under the same circumstances. There are, it is said, five places within the limits of Uguisuzawa (the village in which the Hosoknra mines are) where lignite is found ; and in the village of Monji two leagues and a half distant there is said to be a bed of it fifty feet thick, in layers of four feet separated by layers of stone a foot thick ; but it was found to be of bad quality, when tried for smelting ore in a rather larger furnace. From Hosoknra we returned eastward to the Ooshiu- kaidoo past more cliffs, not very distant, of the same •whitish gray sand rock level bedded or very gently dip- ping ; and then kept on a day's journey northward to Midzusawa, finding along the road occasional exposures of soft, chiefly brownish, sand rock, nearly or quite level bedded. At Midzusawa they have four long disused small salt kettles and a tradition that the salt manufacture of Shiogama on the Bay of Sendai was originally here ; but I could not find on inquiry that any salt water was known to exist in the neighborhood. Just beyond Midzusawa we crossed tlie Kitakami river and went north-easterly over two mountain passes, then through the Toono valley and over another mountain to Kamaishi on the sea shore. The rocks of all these mountains are clearly -of wliat we called the Kamoikotan Group in Yesso ; the two former chiefly of brown, dark green and black serpentine, but with gray syenite and decomposing granitic sand (like that near ShirakaWa) on the western side ; the other mountain seems chiefly to be made up of dark greenish gray syenitic rock but with some highly metamorphosed dark gray and light gray lime stone with traces of crinoidal fossils as it seemed. In the Toono valley and also in the Kamaishi valley there was also muoh black slaty quartzlte, or —45-^ siliceous slate. There was also a little blackish compact feld.-pathic rock. The dips are steep sometimes even vortical anil the strike generally north 10° or 5' west. These Kicks are associated together not only here but from western Shinano to Lake Biwa and may still be classed together as one group ; though some parts may differ a gocjd deal from other piirts in age. The only fossils (except one calamite) that have yet heen found ai e in the highly metamorphosed limestone ; and the only recognised ones at Akasaka in Mino, and are said hy Dr. K. Nauinann to be of carboniferous age (fusulina 'and ciinoids). The syenite of the mountains has much white feldspar, a good deal of very daik brown mica, hornblende crystals about a sixtenth of an inch long and a little glassy quartz slightly smoky in round grains, and the whole rock in some places (as near Toono) is crumbling into gray sand. In all the syenites observed the quartz is in like manner in "crystals or in rounded crystalline grains," as Riclitho- f'en says it is in granitic rhyolite ; "while," he says, " in granite it usually permeates the interstices between the other component minerals ;" a passage that by a miscon- ception on my part formerly confirmed me in a probably iiicorieei. iiupiessiou in regaid to some syenites near Chi- kubutomuushi high up on the east coast of Yesso, which I took to belong to the old volcanic rooks. It now seems to me that those syenites and (their associated rocks) as well as some syenite blocks and sand near Kumnui in Yesso must belong rather (like those near Kamaishi and probably also some pebbles found by me near Nikkoo) to the Kiipioikotan Group ; so that the group very likely extends through the central part of Yesso to the northern end of the Island. At the same time, the blackish feld- spaihic rocks, on the Ishcari river above Kamoikotan, which I thought might possibly belong to the old volcanic rocks, no doubt belong to the Kamoikotan Group, as sup- posed at first. Sometimes however there is ditficulty in judging by the mere appearance of the rock at a single point to whioh group it should be assigued. -46— Near Oohashi in the upper part of the Kamaishi valley and in the Sahinai and Hashino valleys adjoining on the norti), lenticular masses, about vertical, (beds apparently) of magnetite have been found in the same rocks, up to a thickness of about fifty feet or even more. They were formerly supposed to be beds or veins of pretty uniform thickness and consequently to be of immense amount ; before our visit it had been found by digging that each deposit thinned out within a short distance. My exami- nation was necessarily a very hasty one indeed ; bnt an extremely rough calculation of the probable amount of accessible ore at the three places near Oohashi showed that there would be perhaps 100,000 tons of it at Shin- yama; 30,000 tons at Motoyama (which I did not myself visit, but had described to me in comparison with the other places) ; 10,000 tons at Nozokinosawa ; making 140,000 tons in all. It is very possible that a careful search may lead to (he discovery of other "important deposits of the ore in the same valley. At Sahinai, across a high mountain pass and pnictioally inaccessible from Kamaishi except by sea, there are three ore places, the thickest with a thickness of about fifty feet of rich ore and about fifty rame of poor ore. At Hashino thei'e are said to be two ore j)la(;es ; and at Sawahi there was another, but it is said now to Inive been all worked otlti Near the magnetite beds one found much epidote and garnet and in the ore in some places are minute traces of mahi' chite, and often a good deal of iron pyriles which will be bv its sulphur very injurious to the quality of the iron; but one of the Sahinai places seems to be very free from that impurity. At Nozokisawa there is limestone within n few feet of the ore. The ore began to be worked about twenty years ago at Oohashi, about a year later at Ha- shino, and about 17 years ago at Sahinai. About 1868 two blast furnaces were built at Sahinai and two at Hashino; and in 1874 one at Sawahi; all of the same size. There was also a furnace of the same kind between Oohashi and Kamaishi. The Sahinai blast furnaces have t)een tUree or four years out of blast: because they did —47— not pay, thougli the ore is said to be the best in quality and quantity outside of ilie Oohaslii valley. They were twenty feet high luul five feet wide across the boshes ; were built outside of syenite and Inside of " Hananiaki firebrick." They were In blast 120 days at a time, mak- ing it is said, 600 kamme a day or 7,200 kamuie (60,000 lbs.) in the whole campaign. The fuel was of course eharcoal and the blast cold ; one of the two furnaces was of poorer material and quickly became unworkable. There was also a small furnace for converting pig iron into wrought iron. Last summer the Government was putting up two large charcoal blast furnaces 59 feet high and eleven feet across the boshes with Whitwell hot blast apparatus, the fire bricks and iron work all imported from England ; and a large rolling mill. The two blast furnaces are expected to need at least ten thousand tons of ore a year. It is tiierefore \evy greatly to be hoped that additional deposits of ore may be found in the Kamai- shi valley. A railroad has been built from the sea shore to Oohashi about eleven miles, and as the principal ore banks are a couple of miles further up the very narrow rough valley the plan has been to bring the ore down by a suspension wire tramvifay. It seems to me that such deposits of ore and the cir- cumstances of the country generally, the dearuess of capital, the cheapness of labor, the great cost of imported furnace materials, the lack of workmen or superintendents familiar with the methods of large furnaces and of the latest blast heating apparatus are more particularly favourable to the working of very small blast furnaces of improved native material, and probably still more to bloomary or Catalan forges, such as are common in many mountain regions of Europe and America, and have flourished within thirty miles of New York in the last twenty years owing to the excellent quality of the iron produced, A blast furnace by enabling a larger quantity to be produced in a continuous operation with a saving of labor is undoubted- ly more profitable in some countries in spite of the far greater amount of capital required. But if a capital of —48— over $900,000 is laid out to obtain an average yearly pro- duct of 5,000 tons of pig iron, tlie interest alone at 18 per cent, a year (supposing the capital to be private property) would amount to tliirty dollars for each ton, not connling the expenses for labor and superintendence, the wear and tear of the works, or the possible early exhauslion of the ore beds and consequently comparatively short life of the furnaces. Of course the fact that as government capital is employed tbe rate of interest may be reckoned lower is favoui'able in the present case ; but is not encouraging to private operators, as an example to whom rather than for its own profit such works would probably be undertaken by the government. I hope to write later a more detailed account of what I learned in my short visit to the iron region ; but mean- while would urge that a thorough geological and topo- graphical survey of it should be undertaken. On finding for the first time by my visit to Kamaislii that the Kamoikotan Group contained magnetic iron ore I suggested at once to the Government that search for such ore should be made and perhaps bounties offered for its discovery in Yesso ; where the Group seems to occupy a very lai'ge space, chiefly in the interior of the Island, and hitherto very little explored except by the Ainos. Soon after my return home in December a specimen of such ore was shown to me as coming from near Biroo on tlie East Coast of Yesso within the rec;ion marked as belonging to the Group on our coloured geological sketch map of the Island. It is quite possible that many other deposils of tlie ore may be found ; and owing to the great abundance of good coal they would be of very great value. It is said that gold sand was washed some years ago by tlie Oono company but abandoned in 1875, at Qotsuchi six leagues north of Kamaishi and no doubt it was derived from Kamoikotan rocks ; confirming therefore Mr. Mun- roe's opinion tliat the gold of Yesso came originally from those rocks. We were told also a day or two later that gold and sand was washed about 200 years ago (in the Genroku epoch) at Sotokawame and Uchikawame, a league from -49— Oobasama, ami that even now a little !s found by washing tlie sand of Kawame river a few leagues southwest of Morlokii, also at Kiimiiniyamori, still in the region of Knmoikotaii rocks. But in thp snme koori (Ileinnkigoori) on tiie wont side of tlie Kitukami river and probably among Old V'oioani(! rocks tl)ere are (if is said) five vil- lages (namely Daiinura, Yngiiclii, Namari, Toyosawa, Sliidate) at each of wliicli there arc several mineral springs, apparently all sulphur sjirintrs, all with white water, but tlie Daimnia springs less so tlmn the others; and all hot except the Namari Springs, which are bike w:um. From the Kamaishi region we returned to Toono and kept on north-westerly to Moiicka the capital ofNambii: passing again a gieat deal of lime reck and serpentine and some syenite rocks with similar stiike and steep dip and no doubt all belonging to the Kamoikotan Group. The ex- ]iosuris continued almost to tlio Kitakami river, a sliort distance below Moriokn, nllhongh we liiul left I lie Kama- ishi mountain ranges far to the east. The necessity of starting at once on this summer's long jnuiiiey obliges ine to pass si ill more briefly over the remainder of th<> trip of last year (having already in letters given some of the principal facts and the advice they suggested), leaving details tolingiven in future special reports for which there will prol)alily be more leisure next winter and spring. From IMorioka we went north- westerly into tlie broad mountain district of old volcanic roeks in the eentrnl part of the Island; and, pass- ing the Ynze liot sulphur springs, reached in a dozen leagues the town of Ilauawa. Thence we went west a league to the copper (chiefly copjier pyrites) mines and furnaces of tlie Okada Coni]inny at Osaruzawa in Kadznno- goori, which yielded in a year about .",250 piculs or ."^ 1 00,000 wortli (there) of copper, with 2,000 workers, in a popnlation of 3,000 ; or abont fifty dollars a year to each worker, and apparently with a profit to the owners. The mines and veins are numerous through a space of three quarters of a league in diameter aud have been worked for about 200 years. Formerly they were work- —50— ed sixty feet below water level, but are not now pumped at all. The furnaces and otlier works are all of the old Japanese style. Hand specimeus were shown of lignite which occurs in the same region, it is said, in three layers of three feet each, in a rather iiiaccesssible place, and not thought woith working. One specimen was like that as- sayed by Mr. Munroe in 1874 (see Kaitakushi Reports) a very pure mineral charcoal ; but the rest is said to be much inferior and is more like the brown fibrous lignite common elsewhere in the Toshibets G-roup, from a small patch of which among the volcanic rocks it probably comes. From Osaruzawa we went a couple of leagues south- west to the gold mines of Ookudzu, about 300 years old, but in 1872 pi-ovided with a mill of ten stamps of a ton each whicii slamps and amalgamates six tons of ore a day. The product from July, 1876, to the end of Marcli, 1877, (and from that time, as I understood, the property was idle until the end of June, when it was sold by the govern- ment to the Okada Company) was about 500 momme of gold or $1100, from 140 tons of ore or about $7.70 to a toil ; but the work was not actively carried on. Thfere are also some of the old hand washing works still in use. We then went to the Kozaka silver mines and furnaces about five leagues north of Hanawa. The mines are in a rich mass of silver ore contained in great part in a yellow earth and supposed to be in the form of a sulphuret. The government had owned the mines and lately had com- pleted some large furnaces and other works for the reduc- tion of the ore by the Ziervogel process ; but about the first of July had sold the whole to the Okada Company. In the one month of eJuly, 1877, the product was 41iVTnF kamrae of silver and about 500 kamme of copper, or about $6,500 in all; about 600 men were employed, one half of them at the mines and one half at the furnaces. The average product then for each workman was nearly eleven dollars a month, much more than is gained at the less elaborate works of any of the other mining places vre visited, —51— We then went down the Yoneshiro rirer, still among Old Volcanic rocks, westerly toKagoyama where lliere are furnaces for refining the copper and extracting the silver from the copper of the Aiii copper (and to a small extent lead) mines and frorn the lead of the Daira lead mines all Government properly. The Kagoyama furnaces were first built in 1774 ; and iire very inconveniently situated on a steep hillside by the l)auk of a small river opposite to a little alluvial plain. They produced in the year from Isl July, 1876, to 30tli June, 1877, of copper 804116,75 lbs ; silver 17942,8 griiins ; lend 202320,75 lbs. We hastily visited the Daira mines half a dozen leagues north of Kagoyama, and the very extensive and numerous Aiii mines on the Aui river ten leagues southerly from the same place. The furnace and works at all three places are all of the old style. Three quarters of a league east of Daira and under the same management are the unimportant Yabets lead mines (evidently an old Aino name like the yet more southern iSahinai, Innai and some others). The Daira mines are 615 years old, and the Yal]et8, 197; and iu all at both there were formerly 680 mining places, of which 658 have been wholly abandoned and 32 are now worked. About forty years ago the mines were very prosperous and they worked a vein of galena that was six feet wide ; but last summer the widest spot was said (o be only four-tenths of a foot iind commonly there was not more than one-tenili. They were expecting however very shortly to reach the abundant ore again at a lower level where it had not yet been worked. One mine (the Shichimai) has a little copper pyrites, which is smelted and yields about 400 lbs. of copper a year. The Daira and Yabets mines and furnaces produced in the year from 1st July, 1876 to 30th June, 1877, of washed ore 290057 lbs. and of lead 181,473 lbs. (about 62^ per cent.) The number of workers is 396, The Aui mines have been worked for about 240 years. They produced in eight mouths (November, 1875, to 30 June, 1876) over 663,000 kamme (about 4,700,000 lbs.) of washed copper ore aud 3,800 kamme (32,500 lbs.) of —52— washed lead ore. In the same time the Ani furnaces produced over 66,700 kamme (about 556,000 lbs.) of crude copper from about 582,160 kamme of washed ore (or about 111 per cent.); and 2,108 kamme (175,700 lbs.) of lead from about 3,670 kamme of waslied ore (about 58 per cen t). The number of workers at Ani are 1895. The mines are much more extensive than at Osaruzawa, and clearly tlie profit is better. I would urge that a careful and tliorough topographical and geological survey be made of llie mines, especially at Aui ; a step that is the very first oue that should be takeu in all mining operations of any importance. Althougli the profit appears to be greater at Ani than in Osaruzawa it seemed to me that some important economy might still be efi'ected without completely abandoning the old Japan- ese furnaces or laying out a great deal of capital. The fuel has long been exhausted from the small vuUey where the furnaces are and is now carried up to the furnaces ; where- as if the ore (but little more than half the weight of the fuel) were carried down to the main river, say near Mid- zuuashi (about a league from the present furnaces), not only would the cost of carriage be much less, but the fuel floated down stream from a large valley above, would be cheaper. The furnaces are of such a simple nature that the removal would not be cosily. Again, the ore is now brought to the surface (as at Osaruzawa) oU tlie backs of men and children through narrow crooked difficult mining galleries, the lowest of which are high above the main river. If a drainage level should be driven in from say Midzunashi, and perhaps divided afterwards into two forks like a letter wye (Y); not only would a much larger amount of the ore veins be freed from water, but all the ore might be conveniently brought out in waggons on u tramway. At Aui in one spot there is a small sedimentary deposit which yields fossils, that looked to me as if they were of about the same age as those of the Toshibets Group in Yesso. Some specimens of lignite were also shown me that came from Kayakusa, a league aud a half up stream —53— from Midzunashi. It was black and shining, but some- what fibrous in structure, and judging by its weight apparently too rich iu ashes. The bed was said to. be lour feet tiiick, though imperfectly exposed ; and they said that there was also another bed of it seven or eight feet tiiick at Kooya, a league still further up sUoiun ; l)Ut that the ([iiality had been tested by the minitig office at Yedo and found unsatisfactory. From Aui we went down stream, past Kagoyama again. Id Tsnrugiila near the mouth of the Yoneshiro Uiver, in Akita Ken. From that place I visited the small Koma- gata oil springs two or three leagues distant up stream ; and the Midzusawa and Menagata oil traces and ahandoned wuils four or five leagues northward by the sea shore near the northern end of the Keu. Then we went sonthei ly to Kubota visiting the Riuge and Tsukinoki oil and lamp- black works, the Yabase oil places and the Miuato oil refinery on the way ; and going to the Nigorikawa few, but good, oil wells where Messrs. Kuwada and Nishi- yama were busily surveying, a league and a half from Kubota. Then after three or four days of rainy weather and office work we visited the Hanagawa Masugawa and Nakamaguchi very small oil places on tlie large peninsula, across the Hachiroogata hay from Kubota. Then we went south again through Kubota, glancing in passing at the salt manufacture on the beach, like that of Tootoomi already mentioned, and along the sea coast, visiting the traces of oil at Michigawa, Ilutiigo, Ashikawii, Kaneyama, the oil wells at Kuregi, and Oo- sawa iu Kamioguni, at Iseichi, Yokooka, and went even to the oil springs at the foot of Chookaisan iu Yokooka. Then going inland, I visited the traces of oil at Kosugeno, Yoshizawa, Matsuzawa, Oosugisawa, and the large but very difficultly accessible traces of oil at Sarugawa near Yashima. The oil of the Akita springs and wells is black and thick. The rocks iu which it occurs are very soft brownish sand rooks ; but at Riuge and Tsukinoki it impregnates New Alluvial earth. The dips of the sand rooks are oommouly uot steep, and uear Yabase and —54— Nigorikftwa are very level. Theneighbouringhillsand rocks I took to be old volcanic and the fine high cone of Choo- kaisan is evidently volcanic. Messrs. KuwadaandNishi- yama before returning finished small surveys of all except the least important of tlie oil places including visits to one or two that had escaped my notice. From near Yashima we crossed a few leagues still further inland to the rich silver mines of Inuai, 300 or 400 years old. There are, they sav, about twenty parallel veins, but only one of them is now worked ; it is said to be about 25 feet thick, but to have at most only six or seven-tenths of a foot in thickness of ore, though some thirty years ago it had 1'3 feet of it. The ore is all a black sulphuret. In the year 1876 the production was 472,283'4 momme of silver from 35,000 kamme of washed ore, or 156,000 kamme of unwashed ore ; or over one and a third per cent, of silver in the washed ore, and about one-third of one per cent, in the unwashed ore. In the year from July, 1876, to June, 1877, the product was 481,237'9 momme of silver, which contains, it is said, one per cent, of gold, that is not seiiaraled. There are about 7O0 men and 200 women eniployed ; 900 in all. The yearly yield (about !r75,0t)0) is then about $83^ to each worker, and the profit ilierefore is good. The miiK-s ai'e carried to a depth of 680 feet bcluw water level, and are pumped by hand with small Japanese pumps, esich ten feet long. The mines and furnaces are all worked in the old fashion. They belong to the Government and are in general supervised by it, but are leased in portions to 87 miners, who sell to the Government the silver produced at 8'6 sen a momme (the value is about 15 sen). The profit I hen is a handsome one to the Govern- ment and the official work much reduced. But the government do the timbering of the mines and the "dead work." Last year they were improving the drain- age level so as to put a tramway into it, according to plans by Mr. Coigiiet. Although so profitable already it seemed to me that im- portant economy might be eflfected by making a drainage —65— drift at a much lower level, which the shape of the moun- tains seemed to render easy ; and perhaps the outlet of such a drift would be in a more convenient place for furnaces than the present high, narrow, steep valley. Of course such questions could be best decided from the maps of a careful survey of the whole field ; and l)y the same survey highly important geological fiiots might very like- ly be brought to light. Close by the office of the mines are found fossil shells (pectons, about half a foot l)road) in a soft yellowish brown sedimentary rock of volcanic materials ; apparently of the age of the Toshibets Group in Yesso, which like- wise contains large pectens. The surrounding mountains, however, seem generally to be old volcanic rocks. From Innai we went soutli-wes(ward and westward to Sakata, by the sea shore in tiie great Siioonai plain. Thence I visited the small oil place and its lampblack works among volcanic rocks on the southern slopes of Chookaisan; but found tliat it would apparently not be worth while to make any further trial wells there nor even a survey, as the deposit seems to be of very limited extent. Then we went southward along the sea coast from Sakata. In passing we were told of a bed of coal (no doubt lignite) about half a foot thick at Al)urato, near Sanze ; and of another about two inches tliick at the neighbouring village of Ilobado. It was .also told us that in the sea, 400 feet deep, seven leagues off ll>e mouth of the Atsumi River there was a place half a league in dia- meter where oil and oil gas come up violently in great quantity, and the oil of a blackish and red color covers the sea ; and that there was another place six leagues from Aoshima towards Sado where oil and gas come up in the sea, but in less quantity. The mouutains along the coast come down to the sea and seem to be made up of old volcanic rocks, in great part green- ish gray tufaceous pebble rooks. From nearly opposite Aoshima we turned a little inland and passing through Murakami, iu northern Echigo, and Kurokawa (where the oil survey had been made in 1876) we came to Mikkfticlii, near Niigata. I made thence a hestj visit to the small Akatani mines of lignite of a pooi- quality, some three or four leagues to the east, then we kept south t.lirough Shibata to Niitsu, where we met Messrs. Inagaki and S. Maeda who were surveying in that neighbourhnod. After ail interview with them we travelled sonthward tlirougli Yoita, Wakinomachi, Miyoohooji, Kashiwazaki, tlie country traversed the preceding year, to Takada, in the southern part of Echigo, thence we went to Tomikura in Shiiiano near the Echigo line and met there Messrs. Yamauchi, Yamagiwa, M. Maeda and Akiyama, who were at work on tlieir survey. Then I went to Nagano (Zenkooji) visiting on the way the Matsunosawa, Kitsn- nedaira, Nigoiiike oil wells, the oil traces of Wakiii, the oil wells of Sekiguchi, the Nnma Shinden oil springs, the Hiirumi cold mineral spring, the Shibatsu oil traces, Kajiro oil traces, tlie Sharishinkooji and Uematsu oil wells ; nearly all of which were included in small sur- veys in 1876, and were united by the survey of 1877. By the sketch maps which my rough sketching enabled me to prepare very quickly the work of Mr. Yamauohi's party was decidedly facilitated, and they were able to return to Yedo mnch sooner than they had been expect- ing to. Near Kajiro I visited in passing an iron foundry for casting pots, not at the moment in blast. The cast iron (old coins, some said from Sado, some said from Nambu) is melted in a furnace made of two movable horizontal sec- tions each of about two feet and a half iu height, and three feet in diameter, with another above them of like diameter and one foot in height, and still another at the top of rather smaller diameter and a foot in height, each about three quarters of a foot thick, of home made reddish bricks and bound with iron hoops. The blast is given liy a box bellows like Ihose of the oil wells, about ten feel; long by five wide, worked by ten men. About 5000 or even 5,500 lbs. are cast at one operation, which lasts all day, and the preparations for which take a fortnight. The pots are cast upside down ; the lower half of the mould is -57— maile afresh for every casting, chiefly of coarse sftnd, but coveipd with finer sfind ; the upper half is made of clay and nstid repeatedly. The surface of the mould is sprinkled with vpiy finely powdered charcoal of pine wood and not with graphilc. There were some 250 mould", mostly for pots about a foot in diameter, but some of them about thi'po fcpt. 'V\\o ono foot pots are about three-sixteenths of an incli in thiclsuess. Some of thpni in onstini^ iiro im- perfect with small liolos ; and 1 happened to see n, tinker mendinn; thorn, a proross that has lon<; oxoitod much curiosity in western countries. lie wns fillino; up the holes with bits of iron of like thi(d{noss, tluit he liiimmer- od out over a small anvil until they joined the edjips of tho holes neatly all round. "Are not these Ints cast iron ? " I asked. — " Yes,'' said be. — " But how is i( you hammer tliem out ? " — " Oh ! they have been softened in the Are ! " In that simple way he fills up boles a c(narter of an inch In diamel or and by degrees even holes three- eights of an inch wide by a tenth of a foot long ; but such meiuled pots arc sold a 111 tie cheaper tban the perfect ones (2.) or 30 i^ents), and are less durable. The foundry appeared to bo owned ami managed by n woman. At Nagano we were delayed twenty-four days by Jlr. Adaelii's serious illness, but it gave me ai'bance not oulv to visit the Tataia and Monsuge oil traces and trial wells within a league or so, but to do a good deal of ofRco work in reducing my sketcliing, which would have occupied much more time under the fiequent interruptions in office work at Yedo ; and also enabled me to spend six days (including a Sunday) in makincr a flyintr visit. Iiome on private business. Although the season was already far advanced for the mountains (tho middle ot'Oetober) it was thought best that I should conlinne the journey wesluard; and, as soon as 'Sir. Adacbi was well enough, I visited the Miyanoooil tracQs, Ihe Kurumigoori oil well, Hntae, the Minenohara and Miase Yachi old oil wells in Aoku, the Yachi or Hori- noucbi now barren oil well, the Kirikubo oil trace, and fhe Nakao and Chikuni oil gas places ; all of very trifling —68-- or no importance as oil places, though some of tHem are perhaps the best in the north-western part of Shinano. Near Chilling the government or the world to make any groat piognss in its ac(|ualnlniicp with the geology of the country. In order to make our know- ledge of the relative age of the different groups of rocUs in Japan more complete and to render i)o>sihle a better comparison of them with the formations of other countries, Dr. Edmund Naumann, Professor of Geology in the Too- kiyoo Daigakkoo and specially \ersed in pajeentology, lias at my suggestion and with the consent of the governiiient kindly undertaken to make iu his leisure moments a sliuly of the fossils collected during our surveys in Yesso and Nippon (in addition to his own collection). At the same time with the general reconnaissance, by the valuable aid of our assistants we are completing and (Miri'ecting the suiveys ami very large and interesting maps of the oil fields ; and hope very soon now, this sea- son, not only to have worked out the geological structnie (often very difficult) near the oil wells, but to have marked on the ground the places where the oil bearing beds are not too deep for practicable wells. After that and the final copying of their maps and sections and making them ready for publication, the assistants can very advantageously be employed iu making similar surveys near mines, first the government mines and then private ones ; and throughout their life I am sure there will be no lack of most useful occupation of that kind, and that the government will never find reason to regret that they have received their special training. I have the honor to be. Sir, Your most obedient servant, BEN J. SMITH LY'MAN, Chief Geologist and Mining Engineer. Yedo, 14th June, 1878, -^v;^- c-J-p -^'^l^v^ :-S; .>"C*''l. vj^i-'^^ r<»i^ ilt^* ~M i'Kf -■V/'3 Vi":-' ,*SP?! ^^■vS: ;»:i%^ ,*':t ■ ^'^ r-V- '^■^^ 3w r*-; .vV^<*> ^>^: ^^^^'V^tfTi «^r ^^ 57 \:,