Description

The colourful detailed geological map of mount Fuji, drafted by a Japanese geologist Ishihara was published as an appendix to a book Nature World of Mount Fuji (Fujisan no shizenkai / 富士山の自然), published by the Yamanashi Prefecture (山梨県編) in 1925.

The map appears to be a first modern and separately printed colourful map of the volcano, which is the highest mountain of Japan. The history of the geological researches of Fuji go to the Meiji era, when the fist geological map in a smaller scale was made by Suzuki and published in 1887. A year later a German scientist, Heinrich Edmund Naumann (1854 –1927), who is considered a Father of Japanese geology, made a geological research of mount Fuji, which was published with a smaller map in German language. It was not translated into Japanese until 2013.

This 1925 map is exceedingly rare. According to Worldcat book only appears to be housed in two institutions (UC Berkeley Library and National Diet Library in Tokyo, the others appear to be eBooks – OCLC 674267917). The National Diet Library in Tokyo also holds a separate map.

References: OCLC 674834158 and 33690950 (with no named institutions).