Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/18

 BALASOR.

8

during

and almost every year the waters of and the Baitarani devastate large tracts of country. Protective works have been undertaken by Government at great cost, but the floods are quite unmanageable while they last, and the embankments which have been built are altogether insufficient for their control. The principal embankments are the Bhograi and Salsa Pat, on the lower reaches of the Subarnarekha. Droughts, due to deficient rainfall, occur hills

the rainy season,

the Subarnarekha

from time to time, but fortunately the failure in the higher levels is often compensated by increased fertility in the plains. In years of flood, however, although the uplands are much benefited by the local rainfall, to which the floods are partly attributable, the extent of high land is so small that the increased fertility is by no means commensurate with the loss of crops in the low-lying in the years 1836, 1839, 1840,

famine of 1866

will

be found

tracts.

and 1865.

in the article

Serious droughts occurred

An

account of the

terrible

on Orissa, and the reader

who

wishes to study the details of that calamity should consult the Report of the Famine Commissioners (folio, 2 vols., Calcutta, 1867). The number of paupers who died in the town of Balasor in the five months June to October was 8900. Situated as it is, at the north-west corner of the Bay of Bengal, Balasor is also much exposed to the cyclones

which

arise in the bay.

irresistible

These cyclones are generally accompanied by 7 to 15 feet, which

storm-waves, varying in height from

sometimes penetrate as

far as 9 miles inland. Such calamities occurred In the severest of these, the 1823, 1831, 1832, 1848, and 1851.

in

cyclone of 1831, 26,000 persons were destroyed. Fortunately the two last cyclones (in 1872 and 1874) were not accompanied by storm-waves.

ATa 7tufadures. making, which facture

is

—The

is

principal manufacture of the

District

stated to have increased of late years.

susceptible of unlimited development.

is

salt-

This manu-

It is carried

out in

along the sea-coast, chiefly by means of artificial evaporation, the process being as follows At the beginning of the

saline

tract



—

December, the contractor selects his locality about a quarter or half a mile from the sea, and engages a class of men called chuliyds, or gangers. These men receive payment at the rate of is. a cwt. for whatever quantity of salt they turn out. They in their turn engage working parties of malangis, or labourers, who are paid at the rate of from 3d. to 4-id. a day. The ground is first marked out by a shallow trench, and the grass and bushes are carefully dug up and removed. A deep ditch is next dug from the sea, by means of which twice a month the spring tides overflow the salt field, and fill a number of A mound reservoirs four feet in diameter and two or three feet deep. of earth is then piled up to the height of two feet, and from three to four feet in diameter. It is next hollowed out into the shape of a bowl, plastered inside with clay, and furnished with a hole at the