黒潮と日本人の遭遇史（第二部） 近世の和書と洋書にもとづく論考

Abstract

After the national isolation policy was established in 1639, the building of large ships and ocean navigation were prohibited in Japan. Thus, it is difficult to find old books describing the Kuroshio. By searching and deciphering early books, however, I have found some historical descriptions and illustrations about the Kuroshio. By examining these records, coupled with records in the Western books, I have reached the following conclusion. The term originated from a local word Kurose River, used within inhabitants of the Izu Islands, which indicated a branch of the actual Kuroshio flowing over the Izu Ridge. About 1800 it became meaning the Kuroshio south of the Tokaido District, and became popular among Japanese people by the fashion of publishing maps, local geography, accounts of trips and novels. However, a view of fragmental currents at that period might interrupted the recognition of the Kuroshio as a long current. From the end of the 18th century to the mid 19th, the Western collected information about Japan's geography published by the Japanese and made surveys and analyses of the Kuroshio on the occasion of cruises to ask for establishment of commercial relationship with Japan. Before the Meiji Restoration (1868), the term had already turned to an international word, which meant the entire Kuroshio, by the international diffusion of information about the Kuroshio. However, the undersanding of the Kuroshio by the Japanese was not practical as shown in Kanrin Maru journals by them.