158 C0GGD3 lilioWN : MINES & MINERAL RESOURCES OF YUNNAN. 



2. The salt-fields of Central Yunnan, including those of the 

 Ch'u-hsuing Pa, Yunnan Pa and Ch*u-ching Fn prefectures. 



3. The salt-fields of South- Western Yunnan including those 

 of the Pu-erh Fu and Cheng-chiang Fu prefectures. The salt- 

 fields of the Ching-tung district are situated about midway between 

 those of Wei-yuan T'ing and Ting-yuan Hsien, but they are really 

 an isolated portion of the south-western field. 



The figures of production in the above list are calculated in 

 short tons from Chinese statistics supplied to me in 1909 by Mr. 

 Archibald Rose, at that time His Britannic Majesty's Consul in 

 Teng-yiieh. It is not at all likely that the annual production of 

 salt has varied very much since then. The total retail value of 

 the 36,000 short tons of salt produced in Yunnan I calculate to be 

 about Rs. 43,20,000 (£288,000) per annum, a price which compares 

 favourably with that charged for the same commodity in the bazar 

 of the Tavoy wolfram field at the moment of writing (June, 1018). 

 Working from the same figures I calculated the total annual 

 amount of revenue derived by the Government of that day from 

 the manufacture and first sale of the salt to be Rs. 25,58,000 

 (£170,533), on the assumption that the prices ami duties throughout 

 the fields were the same as those in vogue in the north-western 

 field. 



It will be noticed that the 36,000 short tons of salt is consumed 

 by a population of 9,000,000 souls, but it has been stated in the 

 introduction to this work that the population of Yunnan is about 

 1 1 ,000,000 souls. The question may be asked, where do the 

 remaining 2,000,000 people obtain their supplies from ? In this 

 connection it may be mentioned that the north-eastern districts 

 of the province are supplied with salt from Ssu-ch'uan, that there 

 are brine-wells at Ya-ka-lo, a town five miles outside the Yunnan 

 border in the extreme north-western corner of the province, which 

 according to Davies supply all the surrounding country (D. ; p. 

 2G3), and that there is a certain amount of illicit manufacture 

 and contraband trade in salt in other regions. 



Salt is also manufactured from brine at Yen-ching and Yen- 

 tang in the Yen-yuan Hsien district of Ssu-ch'uan. Their places 

 are within short distances of the northern border of Yunnan, in 

 the Yung-pei T'ing district. 



