As the fire-proof buildings, or kura, are often used as dwelling-places, a brief mention of their structure may be proper here. These buildings are specially designed for fire-proof store-houses. They are generally two stories in eight, with walls eighteen inches to two feet or more in thickness, composed of mud plastered on to a frame-work of great strength and solidity. The beams are closely notched, and bound with a coarse-fibered rope; and small bamboos are closely secured to the beams. Short coarse-fibered ropes, a foot in length, are secured in close rows to the cross-beams and uprights. All these preparations are made for the purose of more securely holding the successive layers of mud to be applied. As a preliminary to this work a huge and ample staging is erected to completely envelop the building. The staging, indeed, forms a huge cage, and upon this straw mattings are hung so that the mud plastering shall not dry too quickly. This cage is sufficiently ample to allow the men to work freely around and beneath it. Layer after layer is applied, a a long time elapses between these applications, in order that each layer may dry properly. Two years or more are required in the proper construction of one of these fire-proof buildings. The walls having been finished, a coat of plaster, or a plaster mixed with lamp-black, is applied, and a fine polished surface, like black lacquer is produced. This polished black surface is made by first rubbing with a cloth, then with silk, and finally with the hand.

A newly-finished kura presents a remarkably solid and imposing appearance. The roofs are of immense thickness, with enormous ridges ornamented with artistic designs in stucco, and the ridges terminating with ornamental tiles in high-relief. The fine polish of these buildings soon becomes impaired, and they finally assume a dull black or slaty color; sometimes a coat of white plaster is applied. Upon the outside of the wall a series of long iron hooks are seen; these are to hold an adjustable wooden casing which is often used to cover the walls, and thus to protect them from the eroding action of the elements. These wooden casings are place against the buildings, proper openings being left through which the iron hooks project, and long slender bars of wood stretch across the wall, eld in place by the upturned ends of the iron hooks, and in turn holding the wooden casing in place.

The windows of the buildings are small, and each is closed either by a sliding-door of great thickness and solidity, or by double-shutters swinging together. The edges of these shutters have a series of rabbets, or steps, precisely like those seen in the heavy doors of a bank-safe. At the time of a fire, additional precautions are taken by stopping up the chinks of these closes shutters with mud, which is always at hand, ready mixed for such an emergency. These buildings, when properly constructed, seem to answer their purose admirably; and after a conflagration, when all the surrounding territory is absolutely flat, -- for these are no tottering chimneys or cavernous cellars and walls to seen, as with us, -- these black, grimy kura stand conspicuous in the general ruin. They do not all survive, however, as smoke is often seen issuing from some of them, indicating that, as in our own country, safes are not always fire-proof.

Note on this book:

The author, Edward Sylvester Morse was born in 1838 in Portland, Maine. As a young man he worked as a mechanical draftsman for Portland Locomotive Company. He studied conchology at Harvard. After teaching anatomy at Bowdoin College in Maine, he traveled to Japan in 1877 to conduct research on brachiopods. He discovered the Omori Shell Mounds near Tokyo, a late Jomon site. He taught zoology and biology at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1880 Morse returned to the United States and became a director of the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, until 1914. Japanes Homes and Their Surroundings was published in 1886. In 1890 he also became Keeper of Pottery at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which now contains Morse's collection of approximately 5,000 pieces of Japanes pottery. he died in Salem in 1925.