Littell's Living Age/Volume 134/Issue 1727/Japanese Mirrors

From Nature.

JAPANESE MIRRORS.

A short time ago a friend showed me a curious effect, which I had previously heard of, but had never seen. The ladies of Japan use, in making their toilet, a small round mirror about one-twelfth to one-eighth of an inch in thickness, made of a kind of speculum metal, brightly polished and coated with mercury. At the back there are usually various devices, Japanese or Chinese written characters, badges, etc., standing in strong relief, and brightly polished like the front surface. Now if the direct rays of the sun are allowed to fall upon the front of the mirror and are then reflected on to a screen, in a great many cases, though not in all, the figures at the back will appear to shine through the substance of the mirror as bright lines upon a moderately s bright ground.

I have since tried several mirrors as sold in the shops, and in most cases the appearance described has been observed with more or less distinctness.

I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation of this fact, but on considering the mode of manufacture I was led to suppose that the pressure to which the mirror was subjected during polishing, and which is greatest on the parts in relief, was concerned in the production of the figures. On putting this to the test by rubbing the back of the mirror with a blunt pointed instrument, and permitting the rays of the sun to be reflected from the front surface, a bright line appeared in the image corresponding to the position of the part rubbed. This experiment is quite easy to repeat, a scratch with a knife or with any other hard body is sufficient. It would seem as if the pressure upon the back during polishing caused some change in the reflecting surface corresponding to the raised parts whereby the amount of light reflected was greater; or supposing that of the light which falls upon the surface, a part is absorbed and the rest reflected, those parts corresponding to the raised portions on the back are altered by the pressure in such a way that less is absorbed, and therefore a bright image appears. This, of course, is not an explanation of the phenomenon, but I put it forward as perhaps indicating the direction in which the true explanation may be looked for.

The following account of the manufacture of the Japanese mirrors is taken from a paper by Dr. Geerts, read before the Asiatic Society of Japan, and appearing in their "Transactions" for 1875-76, p. 39: —

"For preparing the mould, which consists of two halves, put together with their concave surfaces, the workman first powders a kind of rough plastic clay, and mixes this with levigated powder of a blackish 'tuff-stone' and a little charcoal powder and water, till the paste is plastic and suitable for being moulded. It is then roughly formed by the aid of a wooden frame into square or round cakes; the surface of the latter is covered with a levigated half-liquid mixture of powdered chamotte (old crucibles which have served for melting bronze or copper) and water. Thus well prepared, the blackish paste in the frame receives the concave designs by the aid of woodcuts, cut in relief. The two halves of the mould are put together in the frame and dried. Several of these flat moulds are then placed in a melting-box made of clay and chamotte. This box has on the top an opening, into which the liquid bronze is poured, after it has been melted in small fire-proof clay crucibles. The liquid metal naturally fills all openings inside the box, and consequently also the cavities of the moulds.

For mirrors of first quality the following metal mixture is used in one of the largest mirror foundries in Kiôto: —

Lead	5	parts.
Tin	15	,,
Copper	80	,,
	100

For mirrors of inferior quality is taken —

Lead	10	parts.
Natural sulphide of lead and antimony	10	,,
Copper	80	,,
	100

"After being cooled the melting-box and moulds are crushed and the mirrors taken away. These are then cut, scoured, and filed until the mirror is roughly finished. They are then first polished with a polishing powder called to-no-ki, which consists of the levigated powder of a soft kind of whetstone (to-ishi) found in Yamato and many other places. Secondly, the mirrors are polished with a piece of charcoal and water, the charcoal of the wood ho-no-ki (Magnolia hypoleuca) being preferred as the best for this purpose. When the surface of the mirror is well polished it is covered with a layer of mercury amalgam, consisting of quicksilver, tin, and a little lead. The amalgam is rubbed vigorously with a piece of soft leather, which manipulation must be continued for a long time until the excess of mercury is expelled, and the mirror has got a fine, bright, reflecting surface."R. W. Atkinson.

University of Tokio, Japan.