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The fish are caught in the months of March and April and in October and November. In a good year they produce 7,000 kokus of manure and 150 large tubs of oil at this station.
The Government tax is ten per cent in money.
For the next seventeen miles the road runs parallel to coast line and on a dead level, here the coast has gained land to a great extent at some very recent period. The old beach, cliffs, headlands and bays are distinctly visible, in some places they are now two or three miles from the sea. This new formation appears to consist of an enormous bed of pumice, this is covered by a thin skin of vegetable mould the result I should think of about twenty-five years’ vegetation.
This deposit of pumice may be divided into three parts. 1st, that which fell in Situ during the eruption. 2nd, that washed off the hills and out of the valleys. 3rd, that carried thither by the waves of the sea. The maximum depth to which pumice fell during the last eruption in this section of the Island was about three feet 6 inches. A very good section of this fall may be seen on the banks of the river at Shira-oy which is a fishing station on the same coast as To-ma co-my from which it is 17 miles distant; the perpendicular bank of the river shews this white band of pumice with a few inches of black earth on top and several feet of black sea sand below. In the twilight it appeared as though the river bank was topped with a plastered yashiki fence.
Shira-oy is a large well to do station. The whole station is the property of a blooming widow of about 55 named Marumata. It was stated that there were besides the honjin and fish houses, 20 Japanese houses (7 of which were grog-shops) and 240 Aino dwellings, the latter were very neatly built and thatched.
The population is, Japanese 103, Ainos 260 men, 180 women. There is no cultivation whatever; fish oil and manure are produced in large quantities. Government tax is ten per cent., 8 large boats and 23 canoes belong to the station. Salt was valued at 114 rios per picul.
