1848.] and on its Coal and other Minerals. 519 



angular masses of gypsum. The entrance to the mine is by an opening 

 cut in the marl about 7 feet high, and leading into a passage which pre- 

 serves throughout a height of 6 feet and a width sufficient to allow two 

 individuals to pass. 



From the entrance to the end of the workings, the distance is 640 

 feet, where a chamber has been excavated entirely out of the rock salt 

 40 feet long by 30 feet broad, and about the same height, in which at 

 the time we visited it men, women and children, were busily engaged 

 quarrying the mineral by the light of small oil lamps, formed of the 

 salt and hung by iron hooks on its walls the crystalline surface of which, 

 reflected the light on a deep pool of brine situated in one corner of the 

 chamber, and which is said to communicate with several of the neigh- 

 bouring shafts. 



In the interior of the mine, which was remarkably dry, the heat was 

 most oppressive, and the thermometer hung on the rock salt stood at 

 85° , while in the shade at the mouth of the shaft it indicated 75° . 



The appearance of the miners as seen in the dim light which illumin- 

 ed the mine, was highly striking, their faces and bodies being covered 

 with a saline incrustation. Their dress is of the lightest description, 

 the men wearing nothing but a bit of cloth wound round their loins, and 

 a pad of numdah or thick woollen cloth tied over their skins to protect 

 them from injuries from the sharp angles of the salt or blows from their 

 instruments. These are but few, the one of most importance being a 

 hammer sharpened at one end into a highly tempered point, combining 

 advantages of a pick and chisel. With this and a small crowbar, al- 

 most all the salt is excavated, large hammers being occasionally requi- 

 site to fracture the larger masses of the rock. 



The salt is generally removed from the mine in square lumps of such 

 a size, that two will form a good load for a camel, by which animals it 

 is conveyed, after being weighed at the mouth of the shaft, to Pind 

 Dadun Khan, where it is sold at the rate of lis. 2 per maund, the miners 

 receiving from two rupees to two rupees eight annas per 100 maunds, 

 according to the quality of the salt turned out. 



Varieties of the rock salt. — The mineral occurs in three varieties, the 

 pink, the white and the transparent, but the former is preferred by the 

 natives for culinary purposes, from its containing, it is said, less Beshuh, 

 a term the exact meaning of which we could not discover. The pink 



