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



With regard to the waste of the salt in quarrying, it is true that even a 

 larger loss is taking place at these than at the Cis-Indus workings. At 

 the latter, chips of salt above half a seer in weight are all used, but here 

 pieces of 5 seers are thrown away, and all the sharp corners of the blocks 

 are rounded off, as well as the very great loss which takes place in the 

 manufacture of tubbis. While in all cases economy should be practised 

 in both localities, the natural resources are so great, that there is no ac- 

 tual necessity for. causing inconvenience to the traders or outlay to Gov- 

 ernment in order to avoid wasting the salt. The waste from small salt 

 cannot pass beyond certain limits, and much more damage might be done 

 by irregular mining and by careless quarrying. If the beds of good salt 

 within reach are systematically consumed by either mining or quarrying 

 without allowing whole strata to become practically useless from the ac- 

 cumulation of debris, or to be destroyed by access of water, &c, the 

 damage done by rejection of small salt can well be put up with. 



The traders to the Trans-Indus depots use only open palm-leaf rope 

 net- works (turringries) for carrying the salt in ; by introducing the use 

 of bags as at the Cis-Indus mines, the waste of salt might be at 

 least reduced to the lower standard of the latter mines, but even this may 

 be thought the less necessary, because the amount of salt cropping to 

 the surface is so much greater Trans-Indus. 



Although so much in excess as to make it seem wonderful how these 

 Trans-Indus outcrops have withstood destruction during a whole geolo- 

 gical age, they must in coming centuries melt down to the level of the 

 water-courses, or become deeply covered with debris through the mere 

 action of the atmosphere, the excavation and waste being at the same 

 time continued or not, locally, as the case may be. Mining, instead of 

 quarrying, would then have to be carried on, and it would then be time 

 to think of economising the small salt. 



Foreign salts. — No deposits of potassa or other foreign salts have been 

 found overlying any of the salt beds of this region, yet this is no reason 

 why they should not be supposed to exist. I have, however, carefully 



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