| Summary: | application/pdf This paper describes the form, size and some geographical information on a globe once owned by Kazuki Family. Kazuki's family had been practicing herbal medicine for 3 generations during the period from late Edo to early Meiji Era in Misumi Village, western part of Yamaguchi Prefecture, Southwest Japan. The globe has a wooden stand with two supports, and no nail. The stand is 366 mm long, 175 mm wide and 30 mm in thick. The stand has two grooves with four rectangular holes. Each support is 205-206 mm long, 163-166 mm wide and 14-15 mm thick, and has semi-circular fluting at the top and four rectangular projections 30 mm long at the bottom. The globe is 309 mm and 305 mm in diameter at the Poles and Equator, respectively. The globe has two columnar wood axes 28 mm (South Pole side) and 26 mm (North Pole side) in length and 16-17 mm in diameter. Since the two supports have same height: 168 mm at the fluting from the stand, the globe resembles a wheel with axles placed horizontally in the flutings at the top of these supports, rather like the fork of an upside-down bicycle. Therefore, this globe may be designated as an axle-like globe. The globe is made from wood and Gofun, which is a form of chalk made into a white paste by kneading powered oyster shells with glue and hardening in the air. Some obscure scratches on the surface of the globe show that it might have been polished with the dried Tokusa: a scouring rush. Lines of Latitude are not shown on the globe. Both hemispheres are divided into three zones, Dantai, Seitai and Kantai, which indicate the equatorial zones, temperate zones and arctic zones parallel to the Equator. On the globe the world map is written by hand using a paintbrush after Tagane's world map: one of the Matteo Ricci influenced world map. The interval of twelve meridians with signs of the Chinese zodiac is assumed to be 30 degrees. Some borders of the continents are framed by colors including blue, red, green, yellow and red-brown. The lifetime of the early generations of ...
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