200 WYNNE: TRANS-INDUS SALT REGION, KOHAT DISTRICT. 



The excavation of salt without blading powder. — At Kurruk and 

 Bahadur Khel the rock-salt is excavated without the use of blasting 

 powder, the preference given by the traders to the old form of slabs, 

 (called tubbis)* got by pick and wedge, seems to have prevented the 

 introduction of gunpowder at the above-mentioned quarries. The slabs 

 are all of an equal weight, (ljmaund Sikh weight), thus saving the 

 necessity to weigh the salt, mere counting being required, besides 

 some check to prevent the tubbis from being made too large. 



The tubbis are flat, square slabs of 13 inches breadth and 4 inches 

 thickness, their formation being aided by the stratification of the 

 salt. The men ingeniously arrange their working places so that all the 

 slabs are broken off in tbe line or plane of stratification, the space 

 worked upon being from 10 to 20 feet in length and of an equal breadth 

 measured down the slope of the bedding. 



The most convenient localities seem to be those where the stratifica- 

 tion of the salt dips at an angle of 45°. The working surface being pre- 

 pared, the men begin by making channels with their short-handled picks of 

 hammer-like form, so as to cause the isolation of a number of squares 

 over the surface, separated by channels 3 inches wide and 4 inches deep, 

 the latter equal to the thickness of the slabs. The pick-axes have heads 

 of 3 seers in weight and cut remarkably well, or else the salt must be 

 comparatively soft. I certainly would not have expected such quick 

 cutting if tried at one of the Cis-Indus mines. From the mode of 

 working, the channels get narrower as they penetrate, whence the slabs 

 have sloping or bevelled edges. It is at the pleasure of the workman 

 to finish the channels over the surface and thus have all the slabs ready 

 for breaking off, or else to get one slab after another ready for 



* It is curious to observe the predilection that seems to have obtained from remote 

 times for salt in the form of blocks having some prescribed form. Here it is cut into tubbis. 

 At the salt mines of Abyssinia, we read that blocks of it pass for money, and that at Toudem 

 in the Sahara it is carried from the mines in a form resembling tubbis also, while even at the 

 Wieliczka mines in Poland, barrel-shaped blocks are prepared for transport. Lumps or 

 blocks of salt are said to be preferred by the Afghan herdsmen, who take the salt from 

 Bahadur Khel for their cattle to lick.— A. B. W. 

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