88 WYNNE! GEOLOGY OP KUTCH. [tAET I. 



said never to have been driven down through it owing to the accumulation 

 of water. 



The shaly rock is excavated during the rains and exposed for 

 four months in heaps, when a slow combustion takes place from the de- 

 . composition of the pyrites. It is then spread in squares resembling salt 

 pans and sprinkled with water, after about twelve days it consolidates 

 into efflorescing aiid mamillated crystalline plates or crusts called 

 phithari-ha hij or linj (seed of alum). These are boiled in water 

 in large iron vessels (luted inside with lime) mixed with {'sura kar'j 

 saltpetre (or other potash salt) in the proportion of 15 of the ' alum seed ' 

 to 6 of the latter ; when it has settled the iluid is placed in small earthen 

 vessels, somewhat the shape of small flower pots ; crystallization takes 

 place in three days. These crystals are again boiled one or more times 

 to concentrate the solution, which is finally ladled into large thin bladder 

 shaped earthen mutkas or ghurras with small mouths ; these are sunk 

 in the ground to prevent their breaking, and in five days the alum is 

 found crystallized in masses. The vessels are then broken and the 

 alum removed to a storehouse, the entrance to which is built up until 

 a favorable market can be obtained.* The quantity said to be annually 

 manufactured equals 8,250 maunds of 4>0 seers or 80Ibs each. The 

 saline water of a warm spring which rises from a fault north of the 

 town of Mhurr is supposed to be superior for the purpose of manufactur- 

 ing the alum, and is largely used. 



The alkaline salt, largely composed of potash, which is used in the 



,,, ,. ,, alum manufacture, is made in various places 



Soora Tear. gjj ^^gj. ^jjg country. The village refuse (litter, 



bones, &e.,) is collected and burned, placed over rude filters formed of 



* This account given by tlie Native Superintendent coincided nearly with those furnish- 

 ed by Colonel Grant and general Sir G. Le Grand Jacob, but the amount manufactured ac- 

 cording to the latter was, when he wrote, apparently much greater, (50,000 maunds—? 

 kutcha). 



( 88 ) 



