science

Ichinokawa Mine

Ichinokawa Mine is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ichinokawa Mine rather than just read about it. In short: The Ichinokawa antimony mine (市之川鉱山, Ichinokawa kōzan) was a prominent source of antimony in Saijō, Ehime Prefecture, Japan. Prized high-quality stibnite crystals produced at the mine can be found in museums and private collections around the world.

Key takeaways

Ichinokawa Mine belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ichinokawa Mine to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ichinokawa Mine from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Ichinokawa antimony mine (市之川鉱山, Ichinokawa kōzan) was a prominent source of antimony in Saijō, Ehime Prefecture, Japan. Prized high-quality stibnite crystals produced at the mine can be found in museums and private collections around the world.

History As recorded in The History of Ichinokawa Mine (1901), antimony was first discovered at Ichinokawa in 1679 by Chikanobu Uemonnojo of the Sogabe family. Chikanobu opened the first mines in the area, which were managed privately until 1841, at which point ownership was assumed by Komatsu Domain. Ownership was transferred to Ishizuchi Prefecture (later Ehime Prefecture) in 1871. It was sold to private owners in 1874. After a decade of strife surrounding ownership claims beginning in 1879, government mediation established mining and ownership rights for a group of private stakeholders in 1889. Due to antimony's use in artillery production, the mine's most prosperous years coincided with the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. The mine went into a long period of decline after World War I. Sumitomo Group assumed ownership after World War II and closed the mine permanently in 1957. While the Ichinokawa area is mostly uninhabited today, during the mine's peak years there were over 4,000 residents and 2,000 structures in the mountain community. Unlike Besshi copper mine in nearby Niihama, little external proof of the Ichinokawa mine's existence remains. The main landmark is the portal of the Senga-kō ("deposit of 1,000 loads of ore"), which has been sealed off with concrete. The Ichinokawa Community Center, which sits on the grounds of the former Ichinokawa Elementary School and is a short walk from the Senga-kō portal, has a reference room with historical materials related to the mine. Other exhibits can be seen at the Saijō City Local History Museum and the Ehime Prefectural Science Museum.

Ichinokawa stibnite Large stibnite crystals produced at Ichinokawa can be found in museums and private collections across the world. Crystals were exhibited at the Kyoto Exhibition (1871) and the 1878 Paris World's Fair, where they were awarded silver medals. A large specimen can be seen in the mineral collections of the Natural History Museum, London. The hammer-and-chisel mining method used at Ichinokawa is one reason that so many high-quality stibnite crystals were extracted.

References

External links

Saijō City Board of Education Ichinokawa (in Japanese) "The History of Ichinokawa Mine" (English translation)

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ichinokawa Mine

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ichinokawa Mine claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ichinokawa Mine before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ichinokawa Mine ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ichinokawa Mine

In research: Ichinokawa Mine appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ichinokawa Mine in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ichinokawa Mine is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Antimony mines, Former mines in Japan, Mine closures in the 1950s, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ichinokawa Mine outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ichinokawa Mine in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ichinokawa Mine means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ichinokawa Mine out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ichinokawa Mine in simple terms?

Why does Ichinokawa Mine matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ichinokawa Mine?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ichinokawa Mine.