1 REPORT ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE NORTHERN INDIA
2 REVIEW BYSECTIONS. Solution, instead of evaporating and leaving a surface crust of
3 SAMBHAR.
4 salt as usual,
5 The monsoon rains commenced during July 1897, and by
6 the close of that month a total fall of 6:21 inches had been
7 recorded. Rain occurred on twelve days of the month, and the
8 fall exceeded an inch on two dates only. At the end of
9 July, the accumulation of water in the Lake was small. West
10 of the railway embankment, it was only from five to seven
11 inches indepth, though westerly winds were blowing and
12 banking it up against the railway; and the salt crust in some
13 of the walled enclosures, the formation of the previous year,
14 when the salt hardened and so could not be extracted, had not
15 dissolved. There was no rain during the first week of August,
16 and as it appeared likely that the monsoon fall would be defici-
17 ent, and the density of the Lake had risen to 10° Beaumé, the
18 pans of walled enclosure No. 1 at Sambhar were filled with
19 brine. An attempt was made at the same time to fill the pans
20 of the walled enclosure at Nawa, but the quantity of brine
21 at that end of the Lake was not sutficiently large for the pur-
22 pose. Between the 1st and 18th of August, only 48 cents of
23 rain fell, the density of brine in the Lake stood at from 10° to
24 13° Beaumé, and in order that no time should be lost, arrange-
25 ments were at once made to charge the pans of all the walled
26 enclosures at Sambhar. On the 15th and 16th of August,
27 129 cents of rain fell, the density of the Lake was reduced to 3°
28 Beaumé, and as some brine had accumulated at its western end,
29 the charging of the walled enclosure at Nawa was commenced.
30 At the end of August, the density of the Lake was 4° Beaumé,
31 and the total rainfall of the month amounted to only 6:10
32 inches. Rain occurred on fifteen dates, on only two of which
33 wag more than one inch registered. The fall was in the nature
34 of light local showers. By the beginning of September, the
35 monsoon was practically over. Some light showers, aggregat-
36 ing 129 cents, fell on six dates of that month, but these liad no
37 effect upon the Lake.
38 During September, strenuous efforts were made to utilize
39 fully the small quantity of brine in the Lake. The charging
40 of the walled enclosures was carried on without intermission,
41 and by the close of the month the pans of all of them had been
42 filled to their greatest capacity. Enclosures were made in the
43 bed of the Lake, damming up the brine, for the production of
44 what may be termed spontaneous salt, and the quantity of brine
45 in these, at the time of their construction, would, under ordinary
46 circumstances, have yielded a fairly large outturn. And
47 arrangements were made for the construction along the Lake
48 edge of 3,223 shallow evaporation pans, of which 1,489 had been
49 completed and 651 charged with brine by the end of the month.
50 Everything that was possible was done. The capacity for
51 production of our walled enclosures is so great, that even
52 though the monsoon rainfall had been deficient, I hoped to be
53 able to manufacture a fairly large quantity of salt, larger in
54 fact than the outturn of 1898-97, and this would have been
55 effected if the brine had been as rich in chloride of sodium as it
56 is in ordinary years. But the storms and high winds, which
57 occur usually atthe Lake were markedly absent during the
58 season under review, and the result was that the water which
59 - accumulated in the basin was not sufficiently agitated to allow
60 of chloride of sodium being taken up in solution in the quantity
61 requireé for the formation of good salt brine. As evaporation
62 proceeded in our works, we found that the densities recorded
63 ( 32 )