6 WYNNE : GEOLOGY OF THE SALT RANGE IN THE PUNJAB. 



extraction was by sledg-e-hammer and pickaxe, and from near the surface 

 blocks of 4 maunds each were raised. The salt is said to have held a 

 hig-h place throug-hout India with native practitioners on account of its 

 medicinal virtues, but it is stated to have been impure, having- a consi- 

 derable mixture, probably of mag-nesia, which rendered it unfit for curing- 

 meat. The Punjabis ascribed to its effects the prevalence of nazla, a 

 disease said to consist of a running at the nostrils. 



In those days the salt was not exported west of the Indus. The 

 antiquity of the mines was unknown, and they are said not to have 

 been mentioned by the inquiring- Baber in his Commentaries, though they 

 had been used by the Emperors of Hindustan. 



In the course of a tour through the Upper Panjab and Afghanis- 



Agha Abbas of Shiraz, "^^^ "^^^^ by one Agha Abbas (at the suggestion 

 ^^'^'^- of Major R. Leech, by whom the story of his 



travels was translated*), this person mentions having seen 500,000 

 maunds of salt covered with mud, as a protection from the rain, 

 at Pind-Dadun-Khan. Several of the mines were then closed, including 

 those at " Sardee'^ (Sardi), "Neelawan"' (Nilawan) , '" Durnala,'' and 

 " Chotana"^ (Jutana), and the latter was said to contain veins of copper 

 and lead. Others, as at " Korah'^ (Kheura) and Makraj, were open. 

 From his description these mines appear to have been very irregularly 

 worked, lighted by openings at top, and dangerous from falls of the 

 roof, one of which he witnessed. Blocks were cut by digging round 

 two sides and below with picks, then detaching from above by heavy 

 blows. The mines of Nilawan and Khur Chotata were the finest. 



The cost of carriage from the mines to Pind-Dadun-Khan was one 

 rupee for 20 maunds of salt, and the selling rate, by the Government of 

 Maharaja Golab Sing, was to some merchants one and a half, to others 

 two rupees. Formerly, the mines produced four lakhs of rupees ; after 

 the visit of Captain Wadef they yielded from eight to nine, afterwards 



* Journal of the Asiatic Society, Bengal, Vol. XII, p. 564. 1843. 

 t Afterwards Sir Claude Martine Wade, Vigne's Kabul, p. 2. 

 ( 6 ) 



