Note 27 — Chapter XII · How Copper-culture reached China

That the system of metal-working had anciently an area of origin is emphasized by the investigations conducted by Professor Gowland.27 He deals first with the Japanese evidence. “The method which was practised, and the furnace employed by the early workers, still”, he writes, “survive in use at several mines in Japan at the present time.” A hole in the ground forms the furnace, and a bellows is used to introduce the blast from the top. After the copper is smelted it is allowed to cool off, and when it is nearly solidified it is taken out and broken up. “The copper thus produced in Japan is never cast direct from the smelting furnaces into useful forms, but is always resmelted in crucibles, a mode of procedure which undoubtedly prevailed in Europe during the early Metal and the Bronze Ages.” The Japanese clay crucibles “are analogous to those found in the pile-dwellings of the Swiss and Upper Austrian lakes”.