April i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
70S 
SALT IN THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY 
AND IN CEYLON. 
We refer again to the interesting papers from 
Madras discussing the results, actual and 
possible, of the adoption of the excise system. 
Although the substitution of the excise system 
in the Madras Presidenoy in lieu of the absolute 
monopoly, under which Government officers 
were responsible for the quality of salt purchased 
from the manufacturing ryots, was brought about 
by the influence of parties interested in the 
Cheshire brine salt, yet the result has not been 
and is not likely to be the substitution of English 
for Indian salt in Southern India, for however much 
purer the former may be the natives have a prejudice 
against it, and its introduction would not pay 
unless the price of the indigenous article rose 
to 12 annas per maund, — nearly four times the old 
monopoly price and fully twice the average under the 
excise and license system, by which the purchase 
and distribution of salt has fallen to middlemen. 
And in the interests of the poor natives 
amongst whom the operations connected with 
internal salt manufacture, storage, carriage and 
distribution spreads a great deal of very welcome 
money in the shape of wages, cart hire, &c, it is 
not desirable, in either Madras or Ceylon, that foreign 
salt should supersede the native produot, whether 
naturally formed, or manufactured by a complicated 
system of brine channels, evaporating " pans,'' 
composed of mud lined with sand, bunds, plat- 
forms and stores. We trust that English reformers, 
who view all economic as well as political questions 
through the media of western ideas, will keep their 
hands off our Ceylon salt monopoly (under which the 
people get better and cheaper salt than if all 
restrictions were removed) and our grain and 
cotton cloth taxes, without whioh irrigation works, 
roads, railways, and similar improvements would 
have but a poor chance, if any. There is 
a great deal of general information scattered 
over the Madras minutes, reports and orders, from 
which we can advantageously quote. Mr. Garstin, for 
instance, stated that 
In making the salt, the crystals that first form are 
the purest, that is, most frpo from the magnesium and 
calcium gaits which crystallise more slowly, so that 
there may be a good deal of difference in chemical 
purity between the silt scraped one clay and that 
scraped two or three days afterwards out of the same 
crystallising bed. There is also a considerable differ- 
ence in dampness between salt which is free of mag- 
nesium chloride and that in which it is present in any 
quantity; while as to dit, no one who has had any 
practical experience of salt-making is ignorant of what 
a difference there may be between the cleanliness of salt 
scraped when ttie land winds are not blowing, and salt 
scraped while they are blowing and much dust is fly- 
ing over the, beds. 
This question of wind-blown dust as injuring 
the manufactured salt was noticed by the Ceylon 
Salt Commissioners of 1857, Messrs. Lee and 
Braybrooke, aud they recommended that in seasons 
of drought wat n r should be pumped up to keep a 
portion of the great plain near Puttalam, where 
the salt manufacture is chielly carried on, in a 
moist state. The influence, of tho weather on salt is 
89 
very considerable, but our readers will soaroely be 
prepared to learn that at Hambantota and at 
Puttalam also, the removal of salt to the per- 
manent stores has to be delayed until the rainy 
weather has produced grass to afford food for 
the cart cattle. Irrigation grass fields and ensilage 
would be most valuable in such places as also in the 
north-western, north-central, eastern and northern 
portions of the island generally ; and we trust the 
Superintendent of the Agricultural School will 
bring his Cirencester training to bear on a series 
of experiments in this direction. We may notice 
that under the monopoly system as it formerly 
prevailed in Madras and as it still prevails and 
as we hope it will continue to prevail in 
Ceylon, it was a principle which guided the 
respective Governments, that, to provide against 
the contingency of seasons when salt could not 
be manufactured, the great obstacle being per- 
sistent rains, a quantity equal to two years' 
consumption should be always kept in store. One 
of the great complaints made against the ex- 
cise system is that the licensees do not feel 
bound to observe any such condition, and by an 
inexplicable omission in the agreements made with 
them, are not really so bound; Mr. Garstin wrote 
again : — 
1 Not the least serious objection, however, to the 
excise system is the absence of all control on the part 
of Government over the stocks in the hands of the 
licensees and the consequent possibility of a salt 
famine. Indeed, the stocks during the last year have 
been so low that at some factories they are ex- 
hausted, — a state of affairs which has distinctly 
tended to raise the price of salt. The Salt (Jommis- 
sion of 1876 feared that this result might ensue, 
though they consider that any shortness of supply 
would probably right itself ; but under the monopoly 
system, though failures of supply at particular facto- 
ries occasionally occurred, it was generally from 
causes beyond the control of Government ; and, as a 
rule, there was always a good reserve of about a year's 
supply at all the large factories, — a provision which there 
is no means of securing under the excise system. 
As regards the leading constituents of salt, the 
committee already mentioned reported : — 
The ordinary impurities of bay-salt may be divided 
into those which are (1) soluble and (2,) insoluble in 
water. 
The soluble impurities consist principally of calcium 
sulphate and of the salts of the bittern — magnesium 
and calcium chlorides and magnesium sulphate — with a 
small proportion of other salts which are of no practical 
importance as impurities. 
Magnesium sulphate is not likely to exist in any 
quantity in salts manufactured on the ooasts of India, 
a low temperature being required for its separation in 
presence of sodium chloride. Calcium sulphate in 
excessive proportion indioates insufficient concentration 
of the brine in the condensers ; and the magnesium 
salts and calcium chloride are indicative of overcon- 
centration in the crystallizisng beds, or of insufficiently 
frequent or imperfect removal of mother-liquor, or 
other faults in manufacture. The deliquescent salts of 
the bittern are a cause of dampness and of wastage in 
a salt. 
The insoluble impurities are earthy aud organic 
matters derived mainly from the salt-beds. Their pre- 
sence in excessive proportion may be due to faulty 
construction of the beds, improper gathering or in- 
sufficient washing of the salt, storms and other causes. 
Water is an impurity which always exists in salt and 
may account for as muoh as 10 per cent of its weight. 
The presence of the deliquescent bittern salts in large 
proportion tends to keep a salt moist ; bat there exists 
no constant proportion between the amount of these 
salts and of water. These deliquescent salts absorb 
moisture from the air, and a salt becomes naturally 
purified, with some wastage, as they drain away ufter 
the salt is stored. 
