1 SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE OFFICIAL YEAR 1897-98,
2 had been the result of the solution of inferior salts, and that the REVIEWBY SECTIONS.
3 brine we had collected was distinctly inferior in its capacity for SAMBHAR.
4 the production of common salt, This in itself would have been
5 sufficiently disappointing, but our difficulties were intensified
6 by the formation in the brine of a gelatinous vegetable sub-
7 stance of a greenish tint in immense quantities. Minute
8 forms of vegetation, constituting large masses in the aggre-
9 gate, always appear in the Lake brine when its density is low;
10 but as its specific gravity increases, the vegetation of ordinary
11 years is destroyed and floats upon the surface, and can be easily
12 removed from our works, the concentrated salt brine becoming
13 perfectly limpid. The vegetation which appeared during the
14 past year was not of this description, and we have never before
15 had any experience of if. In its glutinous form it was in in-
16 timate admixture with the whole mass of brine, both in the
17 Lake and on our works, the concentration of the brine did not
18 affect it materially, and the consequence was that it impeded
19 manufacture tova serious extent. The following remarks in
20 connection with the production of the different descriptions of
21 salt obtained at the Lake will give further information on the
22 subject :—
23 Walled enclosures.—We have ten of these important works
24 at Sambhar, and a large one at Nawa was completed during the
25 first three months of the year under report. By the end of
26 September 1897, the pans of all these enclosures had been fill-
27 ed with brine to a depth of from 16 to 18 inches, and so charged,
28 these works would in an ordinary years have yielded at least
29 thirty lakhs of maunds of good salt. The actual outturn
30 amounted to only 16 lakhs of maunds, compared with nearly
31 264 lakhs in 1896-97, itself a bad year, more than 352 lakhs in
32 1895-96, and over 41} lakhs during 1894-95. The low outturn
33 of the past year was entirely due to the inferiority of the lake
34 brine, and to the presence of the vegetable matter which I have
35 already described. The poverty of the brine in chloride of
36 sodium was illustrated in the case of the new walled enclosure
37 at Nawa. Nine pans of this work had been completed before
38 the commencement of the monsoon of 1896. At its close, these .
39 were charged with brine and yielded an outturn of 7,459
40 maunds of salt from every acre of evaporating surface. Dur-
41 ing the year under review, the same pans yielded 4,460 maunds *
42 per acre, and only 1,931 maunds per acre were obtained from 51
43 new pans..”These figures show clearly how very poor the brine
44 of the past year was in common salt. The vegetable growth
45 I have mentioned affected manufacture in all of the walled
46 enclosures, but more seriously at Sambhar than at Nawa. In
47 its gelatinous state, it remained in suspension in the brine,
48 and could not be separated from it, and it was not materially
49 affected as the specific gravity of the brine increased. The
50 result of this was that much salt precipitated in such small
51 crystals, and was so contaminated by vegetable matter, that it
52 ‘liad to be rejected as unsaleable. Even the salt which was
53 extracted, though it was saleable, was poor in quality both as
54 regards size of crystal and purity.
55 Lake edge pans.—The outturn of these works during the
56 year amounted to maunds 1,84,009 only, compared with 4
57 jakhs in 1896-97, 94 lakhs in 1895-96, and 22 lakhs during
58 1894-95. Owing to the inferior quality of the Lake brine,
59 the outturn from these works during the past year would not
60 in any case have been large, but the vegetable matter which
61 formed in the lake rendered futile all the efforts which were
62 made to produce a satisfactory quantity of salt. By the 22nd
63 ( 83 )