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 JBALASOR.

9

bottom, covered with a layer of grass six inches thick.

The

salt-makers

bowl with saline earth scraped off the adjacent land, and pour the sea water on it from the top. By the end of six hours, the water has drained through into a pit at the bottom, and runs down a thatched trench towards a reservoir, whence it is transferred to the evaporators. These consist of i6o to 200 little unglazed earthenware pots, fastened together by stiff tenacious mud, and holding two quarts each. The neighbouring plains supply grass for the fuel. Six hours’ boiling completes the process. The brine, which consisted in the first place of sea water charged to its maximum power of solution by percolating through the bowls of salt earth, subsides into dirty crystals at the bottom of the pots. It is then ladled out. The whole process is as rude and careless as can well be imagined. The total cost of manufill

this

facture

estimated at

is

2s.

3d. a cwt.

In 1881-82, the total amount of

salt



Government

Government revenue of ;^40,552.

yielding a

duty, 4s. per cwt.

thus manufactured was 7448 tons,

In the neighbouring

on by means of solar evaporation, and a description of the process will be found in the account of that District. With the exception of salt-making, the only manufactures in Balasor worth mention are those of brass vessels, ornaments, and coarse cloth. Trade The chief articles of import into the District are wearing apparel, cotton twist, piece-goods, and hardware among European goods, and of gunny-bags, cocoa-nut oil, ghi, drugs, and raw cotton, among Indian products. The principal export is rice, which in favourable seasons is despatched in enormous quantities, both by sea and land, the sea-borne trade having developed greatly of late years. Other exports hides, jute, oil-seeds, and timber. The total value of the imports into the Balasor ports in i88o-8r was ;^4i6,952, of which ^^222,717 represented wearing apparel or European piece-goods or twist and yarn. The exports for the same year amounted to ;i^473,32o, of which ^£^97,990 was for rice. The exports of rice in this year, however, -were far below the average, which for the two previous years District

of Puri, salt manufacture

.

is

carried

—

—

averaged about half a million sterling. In 1881-82, the imports were returned at ^876,^06, and the exports at ;^477,s63 in value. dministraiion The early records of the District have been de-

A

.

—

now be ascertained, the separate expenditure 1804 on the civil administration of Balasor, then a Sub-division of Cuttack, was ^77, 18s. In i88o-8r, the net revenue was ;^65,47o, and the net civil expenditure, on officials and police, ;^i4,oo8. The

stroyed



but so far as can

in

land revenue, which in 1830 amounted to _;,^29,32i, had in 1880 increased to ^^41,069. In 1804, there was i permanent officer and only 3 courts of all kinds in the District; in 1880-81 there

were

12

courts.

At the end of 1880-81, the regular police force