364 Notei on ilie Birds of the Samhhnr Lake 8j' Us vicinUy. 



skin. When you have taken the first few steps in the soft warm 

 mud^ the feeling- is pleasant, but when you come to place your 

 feet on the sharp-pointed crystals and feel them pricking- and 

 scratching as you go down in some very soft place over the 

 knees, and experience the sensation of withdrawing each leg- 

 carefully, the crystals scratching even worse with the upward 

 pull, and the bi-ine causing the fresh cuts to smart all the while, 

 you cannot avoid thinking that a mile of it would be a very fair 

 penance even for an extraordinary sin. Any pilgrim with 

 unboiled peas in his shoes mig-ht handicap you to any extent and 

 win without an effort. The cutting- of the crystals and the con- 

 tinued irritation of the brine produce ulcers on the legs of the 

 laborers, which, if not properly attended to, often lay them up for 

 months. 



The average out-turn of salt from the Lake at Sambhur 

 and Nawa Goodha is about 1,4.00,000* maunds, or 51,429 tons. 

 At Sambhur alone the average out-turn for the last 17 years 

 was 690,000 maunds. The greatest out-turn during the above 

 period, viz., 1,360,000 maunds, was in 1569, and was due to the 

 scant rainfall of 1868 and the abundant supply of labor which 

 the famine forced to the works ; while in 1 863 the least out-turn, 

 viz., 1,504 maunds, was due to the excessive rainfall of the 

 previous year, which raised the lake so high that it even flooded 

 some of the lower parts of the town. 



The supply of salt seems inexhaustible, and in a favorable 

 season, with sufficient labor to construct the necessary works and 

 collect the salt, double, or treble the quantity we now obtain 

 could be collected. 



The salt is of three colors, inz., blue, white, and red. 

 The blue color is due to the lake silt being- enclosed within the 

 crystals or covering them, while the red color is due to some form 

 of microscopic animal or vegetable matter, which is abundantly 

 propagated when the sun^s rays are most intense. As people do 

 not care for this red salt, it is seldom collected. New salt is 

 greatly in demand, and the uniform size of the crystals, as well 

 as the shade of blue or white which they possess, regulate the 

 selling- price. The price varies from 8 annas to Re. 1-1 per 

 maund, but the averag-e price obtained is about 10" 75 annas per 

 maund. 



The earriag-e required for exporting the yearns sales amounted to 

 300,000 bullocks, 66,000 camels, 18,000 carts, and 5,000 asses. 



So far as I am aware, no practical geolog-ist has as yet examined 

 the lake, but the general belief is that the salt has been washed 



* A maund is about 82 lbs> uvoirdupois. 



