''Sekka Zusetsu'' () is a figure collection written by

Doi Toshitsura was a Japanese ''daimyō'' of the Edo period, who ruled the Koga Domain. He served as a ''rōjū'' for Tokugawa Ienari during the Tokugawa shogunate. Biography Toshitsura was born in 1789. He was known to have a scholarly inclination and surro ...

, the fourth ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and no ...

'' of

Koga Domain alt=, Site of Koga Castle, administrative headquarters of Koga Domain was a feudal domain under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo period Japan. It is located in Shimōsa Province, Honshū. The domain was centered at Koga Castle, located in what ...

in 1832.

Overview

was located at the center of the

Kantō Plain The , in the Kantō region of central Honshu, is the largest plain in Japan. Its 17,000 km2 covers more than half of the region extending over Tokyo, Saitama Prefecture, Kanagawa Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture, Gunma Prefecture, Tochigi Prefe ...

. Due to heavy snowfall, the Koga Domain was a good place to observe

snowflakes A snowflake is a single ice crystal that is large enough to fall through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. 1, pp. 100–107.Hobbs, P.V. 1974. Ice Physics. Oxford: C ...

, the fourth ''

'' of

started observing

snowflake A snowflake is a single ice crystal that is large enough to fall through the Earth's atmosphere as snow.Knight, C.; Knight, N. (1973). Snow crystals. Scientific American, vol. 228, no. 1, pp. 100–107.Hobbs, P.V. 1974. Ice Physics. Oxford: C ...

s as his hobby with his own

microscope A microscope () is a laboratory equipment, laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic ...

which was imported from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, and he drew pictures and studies about snowflakes in the book. This figure collection of his is highly valued today in Japan as the first Japanese figure collection of snowflakes. It's said that Toshitsura had many difficulties observing snowflake properly because snowflakes need −10 to −15 Celsius degrees temperature to hold their correct shapes. So Toshitsura had to observe them under very cold temperatures. This book was written for him and his family (the Doi clan, ), but it had great influence on Japanese textile-patterns also. As soon as he wrote the book, snowflake patterns () became popular among ordinary people in

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

Observation method

#Putting a black cloth outside at night when it seems cold enough to snow #Receiving snowflakes with the cloth #If snowflakes received, picking them up carefully and putting into a black cup #Being careful not to breathe on them, and observing them with a microscope.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Scanned facsimile of entire ''Sekka Zusetsu'' online
Edo-period works 1832 non-fiction books Snow in Japan Science books Snow Glaciology