Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/311

 —Within the enclosure of the mausoleum of Iyeyasu at Nikkō there is an immense rectangular basin carved out of a block of granite. It is so perfectly adjusted on its base that it has stood for two hundred and fifty years with the water welling absolutely evenly over its four edges. This monolith, weighing many tons, was transported from Osaka to Nikkō.  —The Japanese pagoda, according to Mr. Conder's researches, is generally a five-storeyed wooden tower, averaging one hundred and fifty feet in height. "The plan is about twenty-four feet square at the base, and each of the four upper storeys recedes somewhat from that below it.... The construction is of very heavy timbers, framed and braced upon the inside in such a complicated manner that there is barely room for the ladderlike staircases which lead from stage to stage. A central post, about three feet in diameter and diminishing towards the top, is framed into the apex of the structure, resting upon a central stone block at the bottom. This is intended to stiffen the tower against swaying in the wind, and the length is so calculated that, after the various stages of the tower have shrunk and settled, the central post shall just bear upon its stone base."  —All the dates given here are according to the old Japanese calendar. Roughly speaking, they must be advanced about a month to obtain the corresponding Gregorian date. For example, the so-called "winter," from September 1st to March 31st, would be, according to the Occidental almanac, from about October 4th to May 4th.  —It will be observed that the chō (thirty-six hundred tsubo) was a square having a side of sixty double paces (i. e. sixty ken, the double pace, or six feet, being called ken). The chō thus became a unit of lineal measurement, and, in accordance with a principle of uniformity which will be at once apparent, thirty-six chō were taken as a measure of distance and called one ri.  —The loss of volume caused by hulling was counted as fifty per cent.  —Mention may be made of another system of measurement found in the pages of early history. The unit 