INTRODUCTION. 210 



encamped, has an alkalinity of 19-3 grams of Na,CO. } per litre, 

 and is undrinkable. I had some holes dug on the shore, in which 

 I found that the water was quite sweet and at a slightly higher 

 level than that of the dhand. 



From what has been said, it will now be apparent that the 

 dhands of the Sind desert arc really low-lying flat places where the 

 original alluvial clay has remained uncovered by sand or has only 

 a thin covering, and where the sand-hills are not entirely arranged 

 m parallel bhits, but in a sort of network of parallel bhits connected 

 by transverse ridges of sand. In this sort of country the talis or 

 valleys between the bhits form oval enclosures where the water 

 accumulates provided there is sufficient spring or sim water round 

 the base of the tali. The dhands therefore, although often large 

 expanses of water, are never very deep ; a dhand of one mile in 

 length may be only ten feet deep in the middle ; they are in fact 

 huge flat-bottomed evaporating pans, in which by continual evapo- 

 ration the salts of the sim or spring water round their shores are 

 continually being concentrated. As a general rule the shallower and 

 smaller the dhand, the greater is the concentration of the solution. 

 The shape is most frequently an oval or elongate ellipse, the long 

 axis of which is parallel with the main bhits, that is parallel with 

 the direction of the monsoon winds. 



In the part of Sind with which I am dealing, the dhands fall 

 into two groups. The first group are those on cither side of the 

 Nara at distances of from a quarter up to about seven miles. The 

 second group are those east of Kot Jubo in the east of the Khairpur 

 State. 



The survey of 18G0— C5 shows the original state of the Nara 

 group of dhands. In the old maps of this period one cannot fail 

 to notice the numerous large dhands east of the Nara in the Khipro 

 and Sanghar taluqas of Thar and Parkar, all of which are now either 

 very much diminished in size or entirely dry talis. It is necessary 

 to note the causes of the gradual desiccation of this area, which 

 has resulted in a shrinkage of the former chaniho^ producing area 

 to narrower limits. According to the Sind Gazetteer, 2 the Nara, 

 before its canalisation was " a channel or narrow valley in the 

 sand-hills, through which the spill water from the left bank of the 



1 Chaniho is tho term used in Sind to denote trona or natural soda. 

 *Op cit. (1907 edition), p. 323. 



