YEZO, or EZO, less correctly YESSO. native HOKKAIDO, the most N. of the four great islands of Japan ; still only partially settled; area, 36,299 square miles; pop. about 700,000. Its official name is Hokkaido, or "Circuit of the Northern Sea," received in 1870, when it was brought under a special colonization department. An agricultural mission from the United States assisted in founding model farms, laying out roads, and building bridges. The capital was changed from Matsumae to Sapporo, which was provided with a railroad to Otani, its port, and to Poronai, the great coal district inland. An agricultural college, breweries, canning factories, beetroot sugar factories, etc., were estab lished, but with inconsiderable results. The coal mines are worked by convict labor. A system of military settlements has of late years been put into force, partly with the view of furnishing a militia against possible invasion from Russia, which is supposed to covet the fine harbors of Yezo. The exposed port
of Otam will probably be abandoned for the more sheltered harbor of Moro ran, on Volcano Bay, now a naval har bor, to which a railway from Poronai mines has been built. The principal products of Yezo are coal, seaweed, sul phur, fish, the catches of salmon on the river Ishikari being sometimes enormous. At the restoration in 1868 the supporters of the Tokugawa government made a last stand here, and were finally de feated at Hakodate. Yezo has a rigor ous climate, being for six months in the year under snow and ice (two feet in the S. to eight feet in the N.). The cen ter of the island is but little known, though it has been crossed twice or thrice by Japanese and European ex plorers; the Ainos live mostly near the mouths of the rivers. The interior is mountainous and inhospitable; there are several active volcanoes.