261 COTTER: SODA INDUSTRY OF BIND. 



salt chaniho the next/' The observations of Mr. Lucas arc of course 

 perfectly clearly explicable to anyone who understands the princi- 

 ples governing the deposition of trona from carbonate-chloride and 

 carbonate chloride-sulphate waters. The various deposits of the 

 Lonar Lake in Berar illustrated this. 1 



As a result of this enquiry into the chaniho industry of Thar and 

 Parkar, the Government of Bombay, who had previously ruled that 

 all alkali produced in Bombay Presidency, excepting the Province 

 of Sind which contained more than 50 per cent, of NaCl should he 

 dutiable as salt, extended their orders to Sind on the 19th April 

 \W2.~ Acting on these orders, the Commissioner in Sind ordered 

 the closing of the ckaniho deposits of Thai* and Parkar ; :J this order, 

 which was passed on the 23rd April L902 ended the Thar and Parkar 

 industry. 



At the time of my visit, the industry was quite forgotten, and I 

 could get no local information. The name Mil ho Puso, a well 

 known (ffiand in 1899 -could not be identified with any locality in 

 Khipro or Sanghar. Enquiries made by the Mukhtyarkars failed to 

 solve the question : the local inhabitants appeared to have few 

 memories of the industry, and many of the older amongsl them 

 had been carried away by the influenza epidemic. 1 found that in 

 general very few of the names on the map of I860 were remember- 

 ed. With the aid of Mr. Thurlev and his subordinates, I was able 

 to test samples of water from nearly every dkand in Sanghar and 

 Khipro, and in this way 1 was enabled to form a clear idea of the 

 distribution of alkaline waters in these taluqas. I shall commence 

 my description with the northern part of Sanghar. 



The most northern tapa 4 of Sanghar is the Jakrao tapa, which 



was formerly part of the territories of t he 

 r l he Singhar taluqa ; i - 1 0j . i -, -, ^ . . , 



Jakrao tapa. Khairpur State, but was ceded to British ad- 



ministration at the time of the construction 



of the Jamrao Canal. The tapa lies to the S.K of the Xasrat taluqa 



of Nawabshah, but there are no dhands of a salt or alkaline type west 



of the Nara. 



1 See Hec. Qeol. Sur. Ind.. XLL. p. 200. 



2 No. 2023, Revenue Department of Government of Bombay, dated Aiuil L9th 

 1902. * ' 



3 No. 0.-277, Commissioner in Sind, dated April 23rd, 1(¥)2. 



* In Sind a taluqa is subdivided into three or four tapas under htpadars, for collec- 

 tion of revenue. 



