ECONOMIC ASPECT OF SALT REGION. 201 



separating. The breaking off is very easy : a small, round, pointed 

 iron is used as a wedge and driven in at the base of the slab by the aid 

 of one of the hard boulders to be found in many parts of the country ; 

 the slab breaks off after a few strokes. By advancing the upper rows 

 of slabs more quickly, the men can obtain convenient steps for them- 

 selves to stand upon and to move up and down to and from the working 

 places. A tubbi seldom breaks, and from long practice, their size and 

 weight becomes very uniform. If there is no connivance with the mer- 

 chants, it is not the workmen's interest to make the ' tubbis too large, for 

 the larger the size, the more labour they cost. » 



In Captain Plowden's manuscript, the time required for excavation 

 of the tubbis is given thus (from Mr. Carne) — An isolated tubbi is got 

 out in 25 minutes, a second one alongside it in 17 minutes, by one man, 

 but it is not said how many sides were cut in each case. It was said at 

 the quarries that a man can get out 16 or 20 tubbis in a day, and from 

 the method pursued, it follows that the labour of cutting out a single 

 tubbi is twice as great as that required for cutting one among a lot.* 



Description of the five working quarries. 

 Jatta quarries supplying the depot of Ismail Khel. — The quarries and 

 salt outcrops of Jatta may be said to extend over a space half a mile 

 long and a quarter of a mile broad. They belong to an inlier stretching 

 east and west, enclosed on three sides by limestone ridges and opening 

 on the fourth or eastern side to the valley of the Ismail Khel river which 

 crosses the inlier. The highest hill is to the south. The distance of the 

 Jatta quarries from the depot at Ismail Khel to the north-west is three 

 miles, and the road is extremely bad ; that village, however, is only half 

 a mile from the Bannu and Kohat road, which, being a good one, is of 



* In the Cis-Indus mines, a similar method, though not exactly the same, was in 

 vogue before the introduction of blasting (shortly before or after 1860). Channels were cut 

 into the face of the salt-rock so as to expose a rectangular block of several maunds in 

 weight with one side adhering. Along this side two or three holes were made, into which 

 were forced heavy pick-axes called ' hanras,' which received heavy blows until the whole 

 block broke off. 



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