gems, history of gemology, ancient mining, Japan

In the Geographical journal for August 1940 I published a brief summary of the ‘Evidence for Ancient Mining’, one illustration for which was taken from a Japanese colour-print by Hiroshigi of the interior of a gold mine. As a result of reading this article, Dr H. J. Osborne White, a well-known geologist, sent me the scroll which forms the subject of the present paper. It is about 22 feet long and I foot broad and illustrates, in a series of attractively coloured drawings, every process from the extraction of gold-ore in the mine on Sado Island to the minting of refined gold. Mr Matsumoto of the Japanese Embassy kindly examined the scroll and was able to translate most of the captions to the pictures and other writings. Though the archaic script sometimes puzzled him, the fact that his family had been connected with mining for several generations was a compensating advantage.