Probably the expense of improved machinery and tram-ways was not taken into account. The cost of production of gold is $2 for every 58 grains, and for silver $96 for 84 pounds.

Next to coal, iron is most commonly found in many varieties of ore. In Hitachi, a bed of iron-stone, eighteen to eight feet in thickness, is worked by English engineers with blast furnaces. Magnetic iron ore is very abundant; heretofore the cost of production of this ore has been nine dollars per ton. The total output in Japan in 1873 was but three thousand tons. The future yield may be vastly increased. Lead is found in twenty provinces, but only one hundred and eighty-five tons were produced in 1874. In 1873, $84,693 worth of lead was imported from abroad. The tin mines in Satsuma, Bungo, and Suwō are not worked. Quicksilver in Hizen and Rikuchiu await miners. Sulphur is abundant, but most of that mined comes from Awomori.

THE HOKKAIDŌ.

The geological reconnoissances and surveys of Yezo have been under the supervision of American engineers. Professors Blake and R. Pumpelly, who were engaged for one year by the bakufu, visited Yezo in 1862. (See "Across America and Asia," by R. Pumpelly, New York: Leypoldt & Holt.) They made a report, and introduced blasting and some other improvements. In 1871, Thomas Antisell, M.D., and, in 1873, Professor Benjamin J. Lyman, and Henry S. Munroe, E. M., all on the staff of the Department of the Development of Yezo, made examinations. From their reports, coal and iron sand seem to be abundant, well distributed, and of fair quality; gold and silver occur in small quantities; copper, zinc, and lead are found, but not in rich deposits. Petroleum issues in a few places. The result of their labors seems to show that Yezo is poor in mineral wealth, except iron and coal, in which it is very rich. The outcome of the highly creditable labors of these gentlemen will be a vast saving to the Japanese of money for useless mining. From the nature of the case, the limited time, and small number of the staff, the greater part of the interior of Yezo and the Kurile Islands is as yet unexplored. For maps, reports, etc., see "Reports of General Capron and his Foreign Assistants," Tōkiō, 1875. The undoubted wealth of the Hokkaido is in timber, fisheries, furs, and agricultural products.

LAND AND AGRICULTURE.

THE exact area of Japan is not known, though computed at from 140,000 to 150,000 square miles, with a population of from 200 to 210 persons to a square mile. The number of acres under cultivation is about 9,000,000, or one-tenth of the entire area, supporting a population of 34 persons to the acre. Not onefourth of the fertile area of Japan is yet under cultivation. Immense portions of good grass land and fertile valleys in Hondo, and almost the whole of Yezo, await the farmer's plow and seed, to return rich harvests. For centuries the agrarian art has been at a stand-still. Population and acreage have increased; but the crop, in bulk and quantity, remains the same. The state records of Iyéyasu's time give 29,000,000 koku as the yield of the empire. The present estimate of an average crop is still under 30,000,000 koku.

In spade-husbandry, the Japanese have little to learn. In stock-rearing, fruitgrowing, and the raising of hardier grains than rice, they need much instruction. On the best soils they raise two crops of wheat, rice, other grains, or root vege

tables. Fifty bushels to the acre is a good average, though much of the land never gives so large a return. The great need in Japanese farming is live stock. The people are slowly changing their diet of fish and vegetables, and becoming meat-eaters-a return to their ancient pre-Buddhistic habits. Material for the new food supply and for the raw material of shoes and clothing must be provided for. At present, Japan imports 55,000,000 pounds of woolens and mixed goods, which in time she may dispense with. Her pastures are capable, judging from known data, of keeping 28,000,000 sheep, yielding an average weight of five pounds per fleece. Sheep farms, by fertilizing the soil, will prepare it for mulberry and tea plantations, thus increasing the supply of silk, and bringing in a train of new industries. Hitherto, human manure has been almost exclusively used, costing twelve dollars per acre.

The system of land tenure and taxation has differed in ancient and modern times. Theoretically, all the soil belongs to the mikado. Anciently, the land was divided into squares, which were subdivided into nine smaller squares, eight of which were cultivated, each by one man, and the ninth-reserved for the mikado-was worked by the nine collectively. The tan is still the unit of measurement. Each man held two tan, or half an acre. In time, this system fell out of use. Farmers in debt would sell their land to a richer one, and thus gradually the land became, in actuality, the people's by an ownership approaching fee simple. The land-owners of the present day have either bought their holdings or have reclaimed their lands; and no one has now the power of taking these away from them. The peasants, holding their land as absolute property, are easily governed; but as soon as an attempt is made to touch their land, redistribute it, or shift ownership, the passive peasants, who submit like children to financial or political despotism, rise in rebellion to violence and blood.

The taxes, which were very light under the ancient mikado's rule, increased greatly under the dual system, and under feudalism were extremely onerous. In Hidéyoshi's time, the Government tax was two-fifths of the crop; in the Tokugawa period, often fifty per cent. The landlord took twenty-five per cent. for rent; so that the farmer got but one-fourth of the crop for his labor, seeds, and profits. In a very bad year, the whole crop went for taxes; and the farmers then, becoming paupers, were fed from the public store by the "benevolence” (!) of the rulers. The system of land-holding and taxation varied in almost every daimio's territory, often in villages near each other. The first attempt of the mikado's Government, in 1872, to correct the abuses of ages of feudalism, and to place the system of land taxes and tenure on one uniform national basis, led to many local insurrections. Bands of peasants in certain sections, jealous of local rights, wedded to long custom, knowing little, and suspecting much, of the policy of the rulers in the distant capital, resisted what was an act of beneficence and jus. tice to millions of people in the whole empire. They were easily subdued.

The tax on the soil is the chief source of Government revenue. Four classes of land-good, medium, inferior, and bad-are reckoned. Paddy, or rice-land, is worth five times as much as arable land, and an investment in rice-land pays about eight per cent. per annum. The peasant's houses are rarely built in the fields, but on yashiki land, paying a slightly higher tax, and the rural population is thus clustered entirely in hamlets or villages.

The true wealth of Japan consists in her agricultural, and not in her mineral or manufacturing, resources. The Government and intelligent classes seem to be alive to this fact. Many of the samurai and nobles have begun farming. The Nai Mu Shō has begun a survey of the empire, with special relation to the resources and capabilities of the soil. A number of American gentlemen of experi

ence have been engaged as theoretical and practical farmers and stock-breeders. In Tōkiō, model and experimental farms, gardens of trial and acclimation, cattle-runs and plantations, and training schools and colleges have been established, in which the upper class of land-holders have taken much interest; nearly two hundred acres of many varieties of grass are being cultivated and tested; a large number of foreign works on stock-raising and agriculture have been translated into Japanese; two thousand cattle and ten thousand sheep have been introduced from the United States and Australia.

About eight hundred beeves are now slaughtered per week in Tōkiō to supply meat food, and six thousand cattle were sold to natives in Kobé in 1875. In the Kai Taku Shi, farms of two hundred and fifteen acres in Tōkiō, arranged under General Capron's superintendence, the excellent breeds of horses, sheep, cattle, and pigs, in spite of all drawbacks first felt from inexperienced keepers and disease, are thriving and multiplying. Over one hundred thousand young apple, pear, and other fruit trees, from American grafts, are set out, and yielding well. Improved implements are also made on the farm-smithy, from American models, by Japanese skilled hands. Besides making its own tools, the Nai Mu Shō distributes seeds, cuttings, models, etc., throughout the country, and the Kai Takŭ Shi, in the Hokkaido. Model farms have also been established in Sapporo and Hakodaté.

It has been demonstrated that Yezo is capable of yielding good crops of hardy cereals and vegetables, that Japan is a country eminently adapted to support sheep and the finest breeds of cattle, and has a climate suited to develop to perfection cereals, leguminous plants, and artificial grasses, such as red and white clover, alfalas, and the rye family. Time and steady perseverance are, however, needed before national success is achieved. It is gratifying to know that, in the improvement of this mother of all arts, Americans have been the pioneers, and have done so much and so well. Next to the uprooting of superstition and gross paganism by pure religion and education, there is nothing more important for Japan than the development of her virgin land and the improvement of her ancient agricultural resources. For detailed information, see The Japan Mail of November 23d, and December 5th, 1874; F. O. Adams's "History of Japan," vol. ii., chap. xii.; and "Reports of General Capron and his Foreign Assistants," Tōkiō, 1875.

MINT AND PUBLIC WORKS.

The Özaka mint is a series of fine and substantial buildings, in the Roman style of architecture, equipped with twelve first-class English coining-presses, thirty-seven melting-furnaces, and a sulphuric and nitric acid manufactory. The mint makes its own tools, cuts its own dies, and performs the usual bullion, assaying, refining, and analyzing business of a mint in other countries. The establishment was organized by Major T. W. Kinder, who was the efficient superintendent from 1870 to 1875. To his energy and ability are due the success and reputation of the mint, which it devolves upon the Japanese to maintain. Three hundred and eighty natives and several Englishmen are employed in it. The coins minted are gold, silver, and copper, and of the same weight, fineness, denomination, and decimal division as the American coinage. They are round, with milled edges. They are stamped with the devices of the rising sun, coiled dragons, legend of date and denomination, in Chinese and Roman numerals,

chrysanthemum, and Paulownia imperialis leaves and flower. Japanese prejudices are against the idea of stamping the mikado's image on their coins. This dislike will probably pass away before many years. From 1871 to 1875, the number of pieces coined was 136,885,541, their value being $62,421,744. The denominations are fourteen: five being gold, five silver, and four copper. The average metal money now in circulation is nearly two dollars per head of the population, and of gold about seven-eighths of that sum per head.

The coasts of Japan, once the most dangerous, are now comparatively safe by night and day. The statistics of 1873 (below the maximum in 1876) show that there are thirty-one light-houses, two light-ships, five buoys, three beacons, and two steam tenders in operation. Over three million dollars have been expended by the Light-house Bureau (Tō Dai Rio). All the modern improvements dictated by advanced science and mechanical skill have been made use of. The coast of Japan now compares favorably with any in Europe. Mr. R. H. Brunton, the capable foreign superintendent, was in the Government service from 1868 to 1876.

The railway from Yokohama to Tōkiō, eighteen miles long, carried, in 1873, 1,435,656 passengers; and, in 1874, 1,592,314 passengers. The railway from Özaka to Kobé, twenty-two miles long, began operations in 1873. The railway from Ōzaka to Kiōto is nearly finished, and will probably open in autumn, 1876. From Kioto the road is surveyed to Tsuruga. Steam-transit lines are also projected from Kiōto into Kii, from Kiōto to Tōkiō and thence to Awomori. The excellence and convenience of transit by sea, and the fact that the mass of the people follow the agricultural life and habits, more than the lack of capital, will delay the completion of these enterprises for years. The great need of Japan is good wagon roads: comparatively few of these exist.

Telegraphs are now completed from Nagasaki to Sapporo, in Yezo. The main line connects the extremities, through the centre of the empire. A number of branch lines are also in operation. All the kens will probably soon be in electrie communication with the capital. Two submarine cables cross the Sea of Japan to Asia, and two wires the Straits of Shimonoséki and Tsugaru. The material used is English, and the Wheatstone system and katagana letters are used. All the above are Government enterprises and property. The Public Works Depart ment also has charge of mines (see page 602), dock-yards, and foundries. A number of steam paper-making, weaving, spinning, sawing, planing, printing, typecasting, and other establishments, representing a great variety of new industries, are being established by natives with foreign assistance. Many of these are assisted or encouraged by the Government.

SILK CROP OF 1875.

THE following notes of raw silk arriving in Yokohama for export in 1875 will show the principal localities in which this staple is produced: In Hitachi, 439,000 pounds; Shinano, 237,000; Iwaki and Rikuzen, 210,000; Musashi, 175,000; Ködzuké, 70,000; Hida, 21,000; Echizen, 17,000; Echigo, 12,500; various places, 18,900; total, 1,190,000 pounds. Only a certain portion of silk raised in Japan is spared for export. The total export of silk from 1862 to 1874 was 12,567,000 pounds, or 1,048,000 pounds per annum. The percentage of silk production in the world is-Italy, 37; China, 36; France, 8; Bengal, 7; Japan, 6; Spain, 2: Persia and the Levant, 4.

INDEX.

A in Japanese, pronounced as a in arm. See America, P. M. S. S., 550.

Adams, Mr. F. O., author of "History of Ja- Antimony, 22, 602, 603.

Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 305, 349, 369, 594, 595. Arrows, 33, 121, 136, 137, 189, 190, 227, 388,