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210 Kyūshū. The most noteworthy gulfs or bays are Volcano Bay in southern Yezo, Aomori Bay at the northern extremity of the Main Island, Sendai Bay in the north-east, the Gulfs of Tōkyō, Sagami, Suruga, Owari, and Kagoshima facing south, and the Bay of Toyama between the peninsula of Noto and the mainland.

Of peninsulas the chief are Noto, jutting out into the Sea of Japan, and Kazusa-Bōshū and Izu, not far from Tōkyō on the Pacific Ocean side. It is an interesting fact that both Noto and Izu, words meaningless in Japanese—mere place-names—can be traced back to terms still used by the Ainos to designate the idea of a "promontory" or "peninsula." Finally, even so rapid a sketch as this cannot pass over the waterfalls of Nikkō, of Kami-ide near Fuji, of Nachi in Kishū, of Todoroki in Shikoku, and of Yōrō. Still less must we forget that mighty river in the sea the Kuroshio, or "Black Brine" which, flowing northwards from the direction of Formosa and the Philippine Islands, warms the southern and south-eastern coasts of Japan much as the Gulfstream warms the coasts of western Europe. Very noteworthy, likewise, is the Naruto Channel which separates the island of Shikoku and Awaji, where the tide rushes with resistless force out of the Inland Sea into the Pacific Ocean.

There are two current divisions of the soil of the empire an older and more popular one into provinces (kuni), of which there are eighty-four in all, and a recent, purely administrative one into prefectures (ken), of which there are forty-three, exclusive of the three metropolitan districts (fu)—Tōkyō, Kyōto, and Ōsaka—and of the islands of Yezo and Formosa. Owing to the extensive use made of the Chinese language in Japan, most of the provinces have two names,—one native Japanese, the other Chinese. Thus, the provinces to the north and west of Tōkyō marked Kōtsuke, Shinano, and Kai on our map, are also called Jōshū, Shinshū, and Kōshū respectively, the syllable shū (州) signifying "province" in Chinese. The south-western province marked Nagato in the map bears the alternative name of Choshu, and forms part of