Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 7.djvu/271

Rh channels at the bottom of the basins into the reservoirs. From these it was baled with chatties (pots) into a set of masonry evaporating pans, carefully levelled and plastered with chunam, where it was left to be converted into salt by solar evaporation. Each lot of salt-earth, which was thus lixiviated, was taken from the basins and thrown outside them, and this process constantly repeated gradually raised the level of the moda and the basins, which were perpetually being re-made on the top of it. Some of the modas gradually grew to be as much as twenty feet in height. When they became too high for the buffaloes to carry the salt-earth up to their summits with comfort, they were abandoned, and others started elsewhere. The earth-salt made in this manner was neither so good nor so strong as marine salt, but it was much used by the poorer classes and for cattle, and thus interfered with the profits of the Government salt monopoly, which was established in 1805. As early as 1806, therefore, it was proposed to prohibit its manufacture. The chief arguments against any such step were that it would inflict hardship upon the Upparas who made the salt, and upon the poorer classes who consumed it, and,for the next three quarters of a century, a wearisome correspondence dragged on regarding the course which it would be proper to pursue. In 1873, Mr. G. Thornhill, Member of the Board of Revenue, visited the Ceded Districts, to see how matters stood. He reported that it was not possible to check the competition of the earth-salt with the Government marine salt by imposing an excise duty, as the modas were numerous and scattered. For similar reasons, and also because all the Upparas were very poor, a license-tax was out of the question. At the same time he calculated that the loss to Government due to the system was from eight to ten lakhs annually, and.