[Mt.Fuji] A Mountain Blessed with Water

Mt.Fuji■A Mountain Blessed with Water

Japan’s most holy mountain, burnished unceasingly by water, irrigates the lives of those around it.

The Waters of Mt. Fuji
Some 2 billion tons of precipitation, it is said, fall on Mt. Fuji every year. There are, however, practically no streams carrying the water off the face of the mountain. Drawn underground, the water surfaces as natural springs at the mountain foot. The reason for this has to do with the mountain’s conic shape. Mt. Fuji has grown from repeated eruptions, and the basalt and volcanic gravel that make up the shell of New Fuji is highly permeable. The ‘Old Fuji’ core, however, is of volcanic mud flow, which does not admit water. Rain and snow falling on Mt. Fuji sink through the outer shell, hit the water-tight layer underneath, and form an underground layer of water flowing down the mountain. Filtered over long periods of time by the lava-flow rock beneath the surface, the water of Mt. Fuji is famous for being both beautifully clear, and rich in minerals. A million tons of water well up each day from the Kakita River Springs in Shizuoka Prefecture, earning them a Ministry of the Environment designation as being among the ‘One Hundred Exquisite Waters of Japan’.