The river and canal communications in Japan are more ramified than the mountainous nature of the country would lead one to expect. It is said that Yedo might, by short canals, be put into water relations with Mito on the east coast and Negata on the north, as boats can go up the Tonay to Shimidzu, within eight miles of the navigable part of the Negata waters; while Miako might be joined by water to Tsurunga on the north and Owarri on the south. By private enterprise, in the year 1832, the Yodo ngawa between Miako and Osaka was deepened and improved by the removal of some rocks. It is said that the Katsura gawa, or Hozu kawa, now a large affluent of the Yodo gawa, formerly ran to the north through the province of Wakasa; but a private individual, Yodo yo, cut a channel by which this river now flows southward into the Osaka River. His family is permitted to levy tolls upon the new channel. The occurrence of fearful convulsions of nature is one of the most remarkable circumstances in these annals; and it may be presumed that only the most severe are noticed. But recent observations go to show that almost every day there is an observable motion of the earth at Yokohama from subterranean causes. The native accounts of these, with drawings, give an appalling idea of the suddenness and the severity of earthquakes. In the year 1707 a very severe earthquake shook the whole of the southern part of the island of Nippon, and simultaneously from the side of the mountain Fusiyama [Fusi--literally “not two,” or none such] issued an eruption of volcanic matter. This eruption continued for fifteen days; and at Yedo, a distance of seventy miles, dust fell to the depth of two feet. Fusiyama had not given any appearance of volcanic action for centuries. The projection on the smooth outline of the hill on the northwestern side marks the place where this action took place, and is known as Ho yay zan. At the same time the volcano Assama yama, in Sinano, broke out into violent action, by which the two adjacent provinces were laid under lava or dust. The same mountain broke out again in 1783, and of the destruction done at that time Titsingh gives a fearful account. He gives details of an earthquake which occurred in 1793 at Simabara, during which a large portion of the mountain was swallowed up; and the boiling sulphurous springs of Onzen, memorable during the persecutions of the Christians, were dried up. The fear of the inhabitants was quickened by the recollection of the eruption of Assama yama, in Sinano, only ten years before. The inhabitants, with their houses, were engulfed in the openings of the earth; they were carried away by boiling water issuing from the hill; they were killed by falling stones and enormous rocks; they were surrounded and burned by streams of fiery lava; they were drowned by the stoppage of rivers. Some were found suspended from trees, some on their knees, some on their heads in mud, the streets strewed with dead bodies.