'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎220] (353/458)

NOTES.
up separately in conical heaps, about sixteen feet in diameter and ten feet high
which are preserved with a thick thatching of grass during the monsoon, iphe
white salt is as pure as any in the world—the black salt is mixed with about one
or two per cent of clay. Both are, in a great measure, free of the magnesian salts
and sulphate which contaminate pammade salts at home;—everything more soluble
than muriate of soda, remaining behind in solution, is washed away by the rains
Salt-pans are much less efficient when new than afterwards, and they continue to
improve as the ground becomes impregnated for ten or fifteen years. When the
first crystallisation is unsatisfactory, as it often is, a second charge of brine is let
on before the salt from the first is removed. The evaporation in the back water
goes on, of course, as rapidly as in the pans themselves, and by this contrivance
which requires no care or preparation, an amount of evaporating surface three or
four times that of the pans is secured: the pans, themselves, only require trouble or
attention, the backwater requires none. The pans are drawn from three to four
times every year as the rains approach they are abandoned for the season. The
sea is seldom let in more than once or twice into the back water : were the whole
available surface kept covered, double the amount of salt, at present manufactureds
might be made. The supply, however, is so close on the heels of the demand, and
the profits are so very low, that there is no reason why production should be ex
tended. Such is the convenience of cur shores for the manufacture, and so easily
and so cheaply can the process of storing and carrying away be managed, that all
the attempts made by Banians to bring salt from Scinde, where it is to be had in
unlimited quantity ready made^have proved unremunerative. The idea, therefore,
of importing salt from England, into India, is about as chimerical as any that ever
entered the human imagination, while the abuse heaped on the quality of the
salt used m India is as undeserved as may be. The upper salt is scarcely surpassed
in purity by the finest the Chesshire mines send forth i while the black salt contains
as much of the pure muriate of soda as does the common pan-made salt at home.
The matter which contaminates the former is conspicuous, and looks very dirty,
but then it is perfectly harmless: the subtle contaminants of the latter are eminently
mischievous, though invisible. An English adult is supposed to consume at an
average of from fifteen to twenty pounds of salt annually, so that he will, in this
way, swallow some three ounces of mud a year : it will be a long time before the
pec v o . irt every one is said to have destined for him in the course of his lifetime,
lT choice G ° nSUmed 1 iU Indiaj numbers ^ people eat pounds’ weight of clay
* * ^
FORMATION OF KUNKUR.-OR THE NEw'fRESH WATER LIMESTONE
INDIA, p. 179 .
T Hety ° f freshwater limestoae, found in great abundance all
overlnd’ a, form„,g the pnucpal ma te rial fro m which quicklime and mortar for
* So called from the Hindustain word of ^ '
stone, or pebble of any other rock.— Newbold ti t extractl0n > signifying a nodule of lime-
^ewooid. Jl. London Assiatic Society, vol. xui.p. 25^