Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1919 — “Houses Roofed With Gold.” [ARTICLE]

“Houses Roofed With Gold.”

“Houses roofed with gold,” of which Marco Polo wrote from rumor, were not mythical. On first arriving In Japan I made a journey to Otoko Yama, In central Japan, January 27, 1871, to test the story. For centuries gold had little more value in Japan than In South America when Balboa sought the Pacific. Even until 1859 gold was worth only four times as much as sliver. I found at the Shinto temple, erected 859 A. D., a glided rain conduit which once encircled the whole of the eaves of the roof, but after the long wars only 80 feet or so was left. Even at the Vienna exposition the solid gold plates on the dolphin from the Nakoya castle attracted attention. It Is historically true that In early Japan there were roofs of gold.—W. E. Griffis In New York Tribune.