Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1876-08-12
THE CENTENNIAL.
An Interesting Letter About Japan and her
Contributions TO the Exhibition.

L have made frequent allusion to
Japan. Her marked sympathy with the
United States in the Centennial move
ment, also her material aid rendered in
the variety and value of exhibits, this
in itself will allow more extensive no
tice of country, and a people, with
whom our relations, social, in O certain
sense, educational to a degree; as I no.
tice great interest in the Japanese in
the matter of educating their youth in
our country, and the increasing extent
of our commercial relations; hence it
will be of value to the general reader to
know a few details not found in the
school books.
The emblem of the Japanese empire
consists of the sun represented by a
golden ball on a red ground for the i'm
perial standard, and by red ball on a
white ground for the national flag. In
ancient times the flags had q double
crest, the sun and moon crescent shape,
the flag shaped like a pennant. The
Shioguns, of the Aslikaga family, intro
duced the vertical flags 400 years ego.
Under the Shioguns of the Tokugawa
family, tho emblem of the sun alone fig
ured on the flag, and has now been
adopted for the new flags of the differ
ent departments.
The Japanese adopted the decimal
system for weights and measures many
centuries before the Chinese. The unity
of the weight is called the "Mome," or
the modern name of "Sen," which is
the same as the Chinese "Mace," and is
equal to thr grammes, 756,521. This
unity is divided into 10,100-1000 parts.
Ku-warme is the highest unity and
equal to 1000 nome, OF three kilos,
756, ,521. For various kinds of goods
the skin" called catty by foreigners, is
used. 1t is equal to 100 nome, or COL
grammes, .04, oranearly one and one
third pounds English. 1t varies accord
ing to the nature of the goods and the
locality. For their measures of capacity
for cereals, liquids, etc., they have the
kaku=10 Do-100 Sho-1, 900 Go=648,
2690 Japanese cubic lines, or 180 liters,
thirty mine, and are in the shape OF
wooden square boxes with diagonal iron
rod stretched across the top, the upper
surface of which is on plane with the
rim of the box. One of the richest ex-
hibits of the Japanese is their "Ikan-
BARI, from the name of the inventor.
Something like 2odpier mache, only that
this is made from numerous layers OF
their paper, which are adhered by glue,
prepared from fern roots and unripe per-
simmons.
Porcelain, ceramics and pottery are
the most important features of Japa-
nese industry. Japanese legends attri.
butte the invention of pottery to Oosei-
tsumi, who lived in time of Oanamuch-
no-mikato, 660 B. @. In 20 B. G.,
human figures were formed of clay and
buried with the deceased members of
the imperial family, thus obviating the
necessity of their servants accompanying
their masters to the grave. I am as
sured this idea was heartily relished by
the servants, who, as compensation for
living imperially in the kitchen, were
required to be buried in the same grave
with their masters, while alive. In the
six century Corean tile manufacturer
came to the capital to teach his profes-
sion, and from that to the sixteenth CEN
tury continued to flourish. At this
period new article was introduced
called Raku, by Corean. It was a
common black earthenware. The be-
ginning of the making of real porcelain
was under direction OF Goro dayu Shon-
sui, native of Ise who went to China,
whore he studied the art. On his return
he settled in the province of Hizen,
which is to-day the most. important
center of the porcelain industry. The
different kinds of porcelain manufac-
tured by this pioneer and continued to
the present are, Some-tsuki or blue, are
painted with cobalt oxide under the
glaze the Kanyu or Hilkiist the Cragull;
the Seldzi or Seladon ware, the Arkai,
or the red ware and the Gosai, which
latter means five colors. This is used
for the porcelain painted with vitrifable
colors upon the glaze. It is now called
Nishkide. In 724 A. D., a priest
named Giyoki introduced the potter's
wheel into Japan.
Vegetable wax is valuable production
of Japan, which seems to have escaped
the attention of correspondents. It is
produced from the fruit of several trees,
belonging to the genus Rhus, amongst
which the Rhus Succedrica is impor-
tant. The lacquer tree, Rhus Verni-
cifera, also yields wax. The Rhus Syl-
Vestris is the wild wax tree. The cult
vated wax trees were imported from the
Loo Choo islands. The berries, the
size of a small pea, and united in
punches, contains the wax between the
kernel and the outer skin. They are
crushed, winnowed, steamed, placed in
hemp cloth bags, steamed again, and
afterwards pressed in wooden wedge
by hand. To facilitate the flow of wax,
a percentage of TIE no abura (oil from
perilla o cimoides) is added. This wax
is made into candles; the art was intro
duced from Loo Choo toward the end of
the sixteenth century. Another tree
yielding kind of vegetable tallow is
the cinnamomum pedunculatum. There
is also an insect producing kind of
wax exclusive of the honey bee. Thew
are identical with the Chinese "pela. "
They live upon the igustrum ibata. 1t
is wonderful the variety of designs
made from this vegetable wax. Candles
are painted and of variety of shapes,
crude and artistic. This wax tree as
we'll as the wax insect could be intro
duced into the United States with the
most productive fruits. There is moth
ing known to the varied fields of agri-
culture or horticulture, and their results
in any part of the world, but can be re-
produced in America, and the necessity
for this introduction is apparent, when
we consider how different elements ex-
haust themselves; and balance OF
power can alone be preserved by pro-
noting supplanting gifts whose strength
will take the place of the effete produc-
tions of soil devoted to speciality for
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