1 SALT RANGE. 167
2 feet thick. In colour it varies from white to flesh-colour, or s sameson, 199.
3 brick-red. It is granular, the concretions being very large and
4 very compact, so that platters® and other utensils arg made out ° ase a
5 of it,‘and take a high polish. Jameson? states it to be so a
6 pure as to require only grinding; Burnes, on the contrary, ’
7 alleges it to have a considerable mixture of some substance, pro-
8 bably magnesia, which renders it, unfit for curing meat.® aia. Bokh. f.
9 The air of the salt-mines has deadly effects on the health of those.
10 employed inthem, producing chronic and wasting catarrh, and dis-
11 tressing and fatal affections of the lungs. In consequence, the ave-
12 rage length of life among the miners does not exceed thirty-five or
13 forty years. Jameson ® considers that considerable skill has been »200.
14 shewn in the working of these mines. They have been long known,
15 being mentioned in the Ayeen Akbery.! At the time of the visit ' ti.100.
16 of Burnes,” in 1832, the total quantity of salt raised in a year, 2 Bokh. |. 55.
17 amounted to eighty million pounds, and it was sold at the mine
18 ut the rate of fifty pounds for a rupee. The present price is double,
19 the advance having been made by Gulab Singh, who now holds
20 the mines.
21 The elevation of the Salt range is not considerable, and ee
22 bably no summit attains the height of 2,500 feet above the sea.3 )1- 1 524 Tamer
23 - Burnes‘ states that these mountains contain alum, antimony, ren 122,
24 and sulphur. Jacquemont,> Burnes,? and Wood,’ obtained stig.
25 humerous specimens of coal from various parts of them. These ; 70?-on Coat
26 are rejected by Jameson® as valueless, on the ground that they * 208.
27 are ‘not true bituminous coal,”* a condemnation which, if just,
28 must also apply to the vast and highly valuable deposits of an-
29 thracite and stone-coal in Wales, Ireland, and many other places,
30 _ * Dr. Jameson! elsewhere thus expresses himself: :—‘ To the question, is 1 Jour. As. Soc.
31 any good coal likely to be found in qaannicy t in this district ? we would at Beng.
32 once answer decidedly in the negative.’ But geology is a department of
33 knowledge in which the field is so immense, and the data often so imperfect,
34 that such sweeping conclusions can rarely be warranted. The opinion of
35 a very weighty authority was widely different. Mr. James Prinsep, in re-
36 porting to government on the coal found on the western bank, stated that
37 ‘* four of the specimens were in fact of the very finest form of mineral coal,
38 that in which all vegetable appearance is lost ;’’ of one of the specimens, a kind
39 of jet, he remarked ‘ that, if found in sufficient quantities, it would not
40 only answer well asa fuel, but be superior to all other coals for the particular
41 object in getting up steam, from the large proportion of inflammable gas it > purnes, Pers.
42 disengaged under combustion.’’? Nar. 118.