2024 Volume 78 Issue 1 Pages 15-20
On April 12, 1987, the author found traces of a hot spring, during the geological survey at the southwestern foot of Bandai volcano. I searched old documents regarding this hot spring but there was no record, and it was “the mysterious hot spring” for a long time. On November 2011, I found and purchased an old sightseeing guide paper “View of Bandaisan Shrine and Enichiji Temple” at an antiquarian bookstore. The guidebook was published in 1906, and most of the content was an explanation of Enichiji Temple, but Mt. Bandai was included in the picture. On the part of Mt. Bandai in the picture, there was a illustration of the wooden house and the word “Gishiki Onsen”. With this discovery, there is a high possibility that the mysterious hot spring is “Gishiki Onsen”.
On May 4, 2021, I conducted a field survey again and recorded the current state of the hot spring site. The hot spring site was located at 140°02′36″E, 37°35′55″N. And the size of the site was approximately elliptical with a width of about 16 m x 14 m.
Looking at old topographic maps, at the location of “Gishiki Onsen” there is a symbol for mineral springs in 1926 but not in 1933. Therefore, it is understood that “Gishiki Onsen” existed at least from 1906 to 1926, from the changes of old pictures and topographical maps.
