293 COTTKK: SODA lNDHSTKV Of SIND. 



Since my visit to Sinti took place in the cold weather, I did not 



, r L1 , . witness any dhand being worked. I have 



Methods of extrao- . J , . . n » 



tion. however made the folio wine: notes — 



The season for collecting chaniho is from April fco October. 

 Chaniho is removed in May or June, when the dhands owing to 

 evaporation are at their driest. If the rains, which usually fall 

 in July, are abundant, no more chaniho can be obtained that season, 

 since the bitterns do not become sufficiently concentrated. But 

 if the rains are scanty, the dhands again become sufficiently concen- 

 trated to yield chaniho in September or October, and thus two 

 annual crops are obtained. 



In order to prevent undue dilution of the dhands by the rain or 

 by the sini water, bands (or low mud embankments) about one foot 

 in width, are constructed, so as to divide the dhand into compart- 

 ments. Bands are constructed parallel with the shore, and about 

 10 yards out ; the water between the shore and the band may 

 become dilute, but that inside the band continues to evaporate. 

 Besides the bands parallel with the shore, others subdivide the 

 enclosure thus made into smaller compartments, Plate 10 (Photo- 

 graph of Ganjawari) shows these bands. They are only to be found 

 in certain dhands which have a slight excess of water. The chaniho 

 forms a thick crust when the dhand or a compartment is sufficiently 

 dried, and is cut out with pick and spade. It is now carried to 

 the shore in baskets, and stacked in conical stacks from 4 to 5 feet 

 in height (see Plate 1L, View of Pakhvaro dhand). These stacks 

 are then covered with grass to protect the chaniho from the rain ; 

 the stacks now look very much like the ordinary haycock with 

 which we are familiar. 



The purer chaniho forms crusts in the shallower parts of the 

 alkaline dhands or around the margins, while the salt and sulphate 

 remain in the bittern, which occupies a circumscribed space in the 

 centre or deeper portion of the dhand. But others of the dhands 

 dry completely, and when this happens the chaniho is less pure. 

 However purer chaniho usually marks the outer zone of retreat 

 of the drying-tip bittern, and the impurer residue will be found in 

 the middle. The intelligent workman may reject this, — or may 

 not. I have elsewhere recorded that the workman seems to be 

 quite as well satisfied with sulphate of soda as with trona, and 

 stacks both. 



