516 Note on the Navigation of the river Nurbudda. QNo. 151. 



at Baroche on the 7th, having performed the entire journey from 

 Mundleysir in twelve days, not including the delays at Chiculdah 

 and Kukranuh, and I am convinced that I should have accomplished 

 it in less time, had I been permitted to proceed altogether by water. 



" The following extract from the report drawn up by Captain 

 Dangerfield, and to be found in Appendix IT, of Malcolm's Central 

 India, gives some valuable and interesting information regarding 

 the bed and vicinity of the Nerbudda, and may well find a place 

 here. 



" The banks of the Nerbudda for a considerable distance between 

 Extract from Capt. Mundleysir and Chiculdah are from forty to seventy 



Dangerfield's Report 



on the Geology, &c. of feet high, and consist, independent of a thin upper 

 Vide Appendix II, layer of rich vegetable mould, of two distinct strata 

 ^dia° lin ' S Cenhal of a»uvium the upper which is very light coloured, 

 contains a great quantity of indurated marl, and is strongly impreg- 

 nated with muriate of soda or common salt, which the natives extract 

 by lixiviation and subsequent evaporation by the sun, in shallow com- 

 partments near the banks, and sell it to the poorer classes, particularly 

 the Bheels in the neighbourhood. This stratum is usually from 

 thirty to forty feet thick. 



" The one on which it reposes, and from which it is divided by a 

 strongly marked horizontal line, and a difference of colour, (this last 

 being of a redder hue,) contains a very large proportion of carbonate 

 of soda in general, but slightly contaminated by the muriate. This bed 

 rarely exceeds ten or fifteen feet thick, and rests immediately on the 

 basalt forming the bed of the river. In the dry season, both these salts 

 form a thick efflorescence on the surface of the bank, and this alone is 

 collected by the natives. That from the lower bed forms an article of 

 export for the use of the washermen, &c. &c. ; but the soda itself is not 

 extracted like the common salt, nor is its value but in the above way 

 known. ****** 



" The bed of the Nerbudda, consisting as already remarked, for a 

 considerable portion of its course of basaltic rocks, gives rise to numer- 

 ous shallows and small falls. Of these, the three principal are, one at 

 Deyree, where the river is much contracted : a second at Semadarah, a 

 little below Mhysir; and a third at the Hum Pahl, or Deer's Leap, 

 below Chiculdah : whence, till its entrance into Guzerat, the stream 



