1 SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE OFFICIAL YEAR 1897-98.
2 contributed but little water to form the supply of brine which REVIEW BY SECTIONS.
3 was needed. The monsoon rains of 1895 and 1896 were excep- SAMBHAR.
4 tionally light and badly distributed, the Lake was very dry
5 during the first three months of the year under review, and
6 the effect of the deficiency in the fall of the monsoon of 1897
7 was therefore greater than it would otherwise have been under
8 more favourable antecedent circumstances. And not only was
9 the accumulation of water in the Lake small, but the dry
10 weather which followed the monsoon caused it to evaporate
11 with great rapidity.
12 For the production of good salt in large quantities, it is
13 necessary, not only that the rainfall should be good, but that
14 _ its distribution over the surrounding country should be such
15 as to cause the rivers to come down in flood and so fill the
16 Lake to a sufficient depth. It is also necessary for the forma-
17 tion of good bxine, that the water so accumulated should be
18 agitated by strong winds, in view to the salt crust, which
19 forms on the bed of the lake in a dry season, being dissolved, ‘
20 and to chloride of sodium being taken up in solution from the
21 surface stratum of the lake bed, in the mud of which it is pre-
22 sent in mechanical admixture.
23 All of these favourable conditions were absent during the
24 past year, which was,I regret to say, one of the most un-
25 favourable on record.
26 35. The statement below shows the quantities of the Deteil of varieties of salt
27 different descriptions of salt which were manufactured af the manufactured.
28 Sambhar Lake during the past and three preceding years :—
29 Method of manufacture. 1894.96, 1895-96. 1896-97. 1897-98.
30 Mads. Mds. Mads. Mds.
31 Walled enclosures oe ew | 41,58,475 35,82,543 | 26,46,484 16,00,126
32 In pans qn the lake edge... we | 22,15,918 9,26,514 4,00,256 1,84,009
33 Lake bod extraction iss we | 6,60,628 620,247 43,156 47,494,
34 Total see | 70,385,016 51,29,304 80,89,846 18,31,629
35 The results of the manufacture of the past year are most
36 unsatisfactory. The figures showing the total quantity of
37 salt produced are the lowest of the four yearly periods. They
38 fall below.those of 1896-97, which was considered a bad year,
39 by maunds 12,58,217, and are less than those of 1895-96 and
40 1894-95 by maunds 32,97,675 and maunds 52,03,387, respec-
41 tively. In dealing with rainfall statistics in the last preced-
42 ing paragraph, I sketched briefly the unfavourable conditions
43 which gave rise to these unsatisfactory results. I will now
44 enter into further details on the subject,
45 During the first three months of the year, not only was the
46 lake bed perfectly dry—a result of the deficiency in the mon-
47 soon rains of 1895 and 1896,—but there was very little of the
48 salt crust which usually forms upon it under such circumstances.
49 To the eastward of the railway embankment which crosses the
50 bed of the lake between Sambhar and Gudha, salt crust existed
51 for a distance of about a mile, and to the west of the embank-
52 ment for about four or five miles, in both cases generally far
53 from either shore. At the Nawa end of the lake, the crust
54 existed only towards the shore under Nawa. This showed a
55 great deficiency in the visible supply of salt. It seems prob-
56 able that owing to the drought and the consequent lowering
57 of the spring level, the brine which accumulated during the
58 monsoon of 1896 sank toa great extent into the mud of the :
59 Lake bed, and earried with it the saline matter it held in
60 ( 31)