328

INDIA

tax, equitable and necessary though it may be, will always
be a fruitful theme for grievance-mongers anxious to
saddle Government with the responsibility of local disturbances.
 The tax now amounts to Rs.2} per maund
for India; i.e about one-halfpenny per pound, and to
one rupee for Burma—Iless than a farthing per pound. At
these rates its value to Indian revenues is maintained at
from seven million to eight million per annum, the consumption
 apparently varying but little from year to year.
There are three distinct sources of salt-supply in
india—.e. sea water evaporation, salt lakes, and salt
mines. Along the coast
of Madras salt is obtained
from the sea by evaporation
 in shallow pans,
which are prepared on
the coast districts for this
purpose as soon as the
rainy season is over.
These pans are about twothirds
 of an acre in extent,
and requirenearlya month
of preparation by the introduction
 of a small
amount of sea water and
a constant succession of
“puddling,” or treading down processes, until the floor is
ready to receive the highly condensed brine which is finally
run in for evaporation. Salt is manufactured in a similar
way near Karachi, and on the Orissa sea border, but not
generally on the western coast of India. It is a curious fact
that there is a large trade in salted fish from the coast of
Makran to the Malabar coast provinces, where one would
naturally suppose that salt fish would be a drug in the
market, but where the process of salting is expensive.
In Rajputana there exists a series of salt lakes, of
which that of Sambhar, on the borders of the native
states of Jaipur and Jodhpur, is the largest and most
important. The lake is about 20 miles long and 4 to g

Fic. 10...