1 ry
2 a
3 _ SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE OFICIAL YEAR 1894-95.
4 and Bhopal in Central India, where, as he told me subsequent- REVIEW BY SECTIONS.
5 ly it did not sell as well as the coarse white clean salt from: the PACE ABDEA-
6 pits in Hiragarh. The Bara Sambra salt was clean but ithada
7 ek tinge. It was almost translucent and very beautiful to
8 ook at.
9 “ Judging from what] have been ableto learn here the tract
10 is in better condition now than at any previous period of the past
11 decade. The soil is saturated with moisture, and the brine
12 springs have been freshened and augmented by the heavy rains
13 ofthe past three rainy seasons. The surface of the tract is
14 covered with dense grass and bushes which help to retain the
15 _ moisture below and keep down the dust and sand which I
16 remember in June 1892 was blown up in clouds by every breeze.
17 There can be no doubt now that what the tract suffered from
18 was want of moisture, and want of sufficient rain to freshen
19 and revive the brine springs, the vitality of which undoubtedly
20 depends on the local.rainfall. The past heavy rains have enor-
21 mously benefited the tract and should Pachbadra be so fortunate
22 _as to have a few more such seasons, I am ready to believe
23 that certain portions of the tract will be as good, as pro-
24 ductive and as rich as they ever were. I say certain por-
25 tions of the tract, by which I mean’ chiefly Hiragarh and
26 Posali. Bara Sambra I am afraid is relatively exhausted.
27 While the: heavy rain of the past three seasons has very consi-
28 derably augmented the brine supply in Hiragarh, Posali and a
29 certain small section of Chota Sambra, the improvement in Bara
30 Sambra is relatively inappreciable. I repeat the opinion I
31 expressed in my last report, that Bara Sambra is no longer the
32 area rich in saline matter it once undoubtedly was. How largely
33 Hiragarh has benefitted by the heavy rain is proved by the fact
34 that in every pit in that section emptied since last rains, the perco-
35 lation of brine into the pit during the course of extraction of
36 salt in it has given trouble, and in some pits the excess brine
37 due to percolation had to be drawn off before the salt could be
38 extracted; and even as I write, at the beginning of May, brine
39 is being drawn off from three pits in Hiragarh to enable extrac-
40 tion of salt to proceed. In two of the three pits the Kharwals
41 though hthey have been drawing off the brine for nearly a month
42 by bullock power (koseta), have not been able to get at the salt.
43 “ There are excluding the two pits experimentally restored,
44 418 pits registered as ‘working pits,‘ many of which are, as
45 1 wrote last year, in disrepair and would cost from one to three
46 hundred rupees per pit to put right, There are very few pits in
47 the tract in really perfect order, owing to a series of dry years
48 before 1892-93, to the damage done by the deluge of rain which
49 fell in 1893, and to neglect on the part of the pit owners to
50 take proper care of them. The pits in the upper half of the
51 Hiragarh section are in the best order ; they are comparatively
52 new pits, having been. excavated since we took over Pachbadra.
53 Nothing could be done in 1898-94 to repair the pits, as labour
54 for such work was unobtainable. Last year, however, some-
55 thing was done in this direction and much more would have been
56 accomplished had more labour been procurable, but when the
57 available supply of labour was barely sufficient to extract the
58 quantity of salt wanted it- would have been unreasonable to
59 expect the Kharwale to put their pits in order. Everything
60 that was possible was done and I hope that next year the
61 best pits as they are emptied will be put in thorough order.
62 The pits emptied during the past two years have been well
63 set with Morali. As most of them were full of water and perco-~
64 ( 51 )°