BHATTANI HILLS. 93 



foregoing pages. It all belongs to the same horizon as that of the Salt 

 Range. 



The gypsum of Kalabagh and the Khasor range is not as yet utilised 

 in this country. It does not appear to be in any way connected with 

 that of the Kohat district ; and how far it may be representative in 

 either of these regions of that occurring to the west in Afghanistan, it 

 is at present impossible to say. 1 



The alum is manufactured from the pyritous shales of the Jurassic 

 and eocene formations. This industry seems to have greatly fallen off. 

 At Chichali, when the place was visited last season, only one batti (kiln) 

 was at work, and no alum was being made at Kalabagh. Dr. Fleming 

 fully described the manufacture in his paper to the Asiatic Society, 

 Bengal, July 1849, page 685, as follows : — 



" The alum is prepared from a black, highly bituminous shale called Rol, con- 

 taining a quantity of iron pyrites, and which is brought from Cbita, about 2 miles 

 distant, and several other localities in the hills around Kalabagh. This shale is 

 coarsely powdered and deposited in layers about a foot thick, between each of which 

 a thin stratum of brushwood, grass, or other combustible material is placed. These lay- 

 ers being piled up to a height of 20 or 30 feet are set fire to, and the whole allowed 

 to burn slowly, water being from time to time sprinkled on the mass, to facilitate the 

 re-action of the ingredients in the kiln on each other. When the combustion is completed, 

 which occupies six or eight months, according to the size of the kiln, the shale has assum- 

 ed a brick-red colour, and its surface is encrusted with a coating of alum mixed with 

 sulphate of iron. This burnt kiln affords the materials for the alum preparations, and 

 portions of it are deposited in a baked earthen vat, which is constructed close to the 

 kiln, and a little below the level of its base, and in it are lixiviated with water. When 

 this is saturated with the crude alum, it is run off, by an opening in the lower part 

 of the vat, into another one of the same dimensions and character, when any muddy 

 particles are allowed to settle. After being allowed to rest in the second vat for six or 

 eight hours, it is then slowly run off into another smaller one at a lower level, and close 

 to a large evaporating iron pan, into which the alum liquid is conveyed, and when boil- 

 ing mixed with a brownish earth which is here called jumsau, and appears identical 

 with the saline incrustation abundant in all jungles in the North- Western Provinces 



1 Vigne mentions that Ghazni is built at the foot of a long narrow ridge of gypsum, 

 beyond which towards Kabul limestone and granite (of the Saf ed Koh ?) occur. ( Yigne's 

 Caubul, p. 126.) 



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