1836.] the Sdmar lake sctlt-ivorks. 801 



A 25. — Good Sambhttr salt, such as a byopdri would call paJckd, and rea- 

 dily buy. 



26. Superior ditto, such as a byopdrl would covet — a year or so old. 



B 1. — " The grandfather of all salt" (the literal expression of the man 

 who brought it.) A lump taken out of an old pit eight cubits deep, said to have 

 been re-opened after a lapse of 100 years. In this may be observed several 

 layers, but for which I should have been ready to believe that the diggers 

 had arrived at the top of an under ground chain of salt mountains, such as those 

 beyond the Indus, which Elphinstone describes, and that they had just chip- 

 ped off a peak. You must know that the bed of the Sambhur lake is, for the most 

 part, as shallow as a dish, and that after the rains it gradually becomes dry ; 

 when dry the natives dig pits a few cubits 1 depth in the bed of the marsh, and 

 pour the salt water that they thus obtain into vats (made with large stakes, 

 grass, and earth), in which it evaporates in from eight to fifteen days, according 

 to the depth of its sheet, and the state of the weather. A pit is dug for a few 

 rupees, so an old one is not usually restored after the rains: the water deposit- 

 ed in it dries into a cake of salt at its bottom ; then a little sand is blown in, 

 and then another rainy season comes, and a second layer is formed, and so on 

 for perhaps many seasons, when, the pit becoming filled, all traces of its con- 

 tents disappear till the sinker of a fresh well hits upon them. 



2. Another lump taken out of another pit three or four cubits deep. 



B 3. — Another from another. 



4. Another bit from another pit. — N. B. All four specimens were extracted 

 when water was above them. 



5, 6, 7. Lump crystals and intermediate strata of earth from other pits. 



8 and 9. Loose crystals from a pit four cubits deep. — Ditto from ditto, eight 

 cubits deep. — N. B. You will observe that nearly all the Sambhur salt crystals 

 grow into the shape of a four-sided pyramid. I see in the Cyclopedia that the 

 cube is given as the ascertained primitive form of 11 minerals, of which salt is 

 one ; please to dissect a crystal till you arrive at its nucleus, and if you have 

 leisure, tell me the process of structure, for " SaJcamberi j{," the tutelary 

 goddess of the Chouhan Rajputs, for one of whom she in the year 608 S. mira- 

 culously made the lake, appears to reverse the order of architecture in put- 

 ting together her mineral particles, causing them to rise from a point to a base*. 



10. A piece from a pit, the crystals of which are slightly coloured. 



Examination of selected Specimens from the above. By J. Stephenson. 



A No. 1. — Mud from the bed of Sambhur Lake. 

 An average portion digested in distilled water, and the filtered solution 

 (which appeared of a reddish brown colour), subjected to the usual tests, gave 

 the following results. 



Nitrate of barytes, Copious white precipitate. 



Nitrate of silver, Ditto flambent grey ditto. 



Prussiate of potash, No change. 



Oxalate of ammonia Ditto ditto. 



Litmus paper, Ditto ditto. 



Turmeric ditto, Ditto ditto. 



* The pyramidal appearance is merely from truncation of the cube. The solid 

 angle of the cube seems to resist solution more than the rest of the crystal.— Ed. 

 5 m 



