Geological researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, during the years 1862-1865.

CHINA, MONGOLIA, AND JAPAN. 103
the greenstone where, also, the gangue is chiefly quartz, and often existing as a
zone, several feet broad, of parallel threads, in the argillaceous rock.
The mines have been worked several years and a considerable area explored, but
like those at Ichinowatari they are very poor-the highest production ever attained
being about four tons per month, and at the time of my visit it was. only about one
and three-quarter tons.
The processes of separation and smelting are the same as at Ichinowatari. The
laborers are furnished, at the expense of the mine, with rice and miSO, a vegetable
substance used for soup. I have added a schedule of the daily expenses, more as a
curiosity, and as illustrating the cost of labor, than for any other reason.
Daily Expenses of the Yurup Lead Mines.
Accountant clerk........... $ 05
Head miner......... 07
Twenty-five miners, at 5 cts......... 1 25
Eighteen coolies, at 4 cts.......... 72
Thirteen women ore dressers and washers, at 2 to 6 cents... 45
Daily consumption of iron........ 12
" " steel....... 04
u" " mats and ropes....... 06
Total....... $2 716
The working time is eight hours daily. The miners receive tasks, for all work
over which they are paid extra. The task when working in the hardest rock, here
a greenstone, is -3u of one foot in five days, per man. In very soft rock five feet
in five days, per man. The average is about one and one-half feet. The above
measures refer to galleries five feet high and three broad. The miners are required
to hew the walls as smoothly, and square the angles as accurately as was the
custom in Germany before the use of gunpowder.
A woman's daily task is to pulverize about 160 pounds of ore.
One thousand, pounds of roughly-sorted ore yields 67 pounds of schlich, from
which 45 pounds of metallic lead are obtained.
The charcoal for smelting is produced in vaulted furnaces, which receive daily
64 cubic feet of split wood.
Both cold and warm chalybeate springs rise in the metamorphic argillite; the
warm one, having the temperature of 46~ C., is used in winter for washing the ore.
At this place we introduced the use of gunpowder in mining-its application to
that purpose being entirely unknown throughout Eastern Asia. We met with the
same objection here that was used, centuries ago, against its introduction into the
German mines, the fear that the mountain would fall in. One blast, however, allayed
this fear, and the miners adopted it enthusiastically thenceforth.
September 11th. Leaving Yurup we descended the valley to the sea. At the
distance of about one mile from the mines we came again to the volcanic conglomerate. This formation is here similar in character to that seen between the
Japan sea and the mines, but differs from that generally met with along the seashore. It has undergone so much alteration that it is often difficult to draw the
line between the inclosing mass and the fragments. These latter are of a dark,