Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Athens-BOI

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impossible to weigh their relative power and influence in
nice or golden scales, nor can we always compel them
“ parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.” But the recog¬
nition of certain mutual obligations and principles of
public law is the fundamental condition of civilisation
itself. Nothing can be more injurious to society than that
the states of Europe should exist without alliances, without
mutual confidence, without a common system based on the
principles of justice and of peace, the weak living in dread
of the strong, the strong armed to the teeth against each
other. We trust that before another great catastrophe
arises from this state of disguised hostility, a truer balance
of power may be established by a return to sounder prin¬
ciples ; for peace can never be secure unless it is protected
by the concurrence of the leading nations of the world, and
by their determination to oppose a combined resistance to
those who have no object but their own aggrandisement
and ambition. (h. r.)
BALASOR, a district of British India in the Orissa
division, under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, lies
between 20° and 21° N. lat, and in 86° and 87° E. long.,
and is bounded on the N. by the district of Midnapur; on
the S. by Cattack district, from which it is separated by the
Baitaram river ; on the W. by the tributary states of Keun-
jhar, Nilgiri, and Morbhanj; and on the E. by the Bay of
Bengal. Balasor district forms a strip of alluvial land
between the hills and the sea, varying from about 9 to 34
miles in breadth; area, 2066 sq. miles. The hill country
rises from the western boundary line. The district natu¬
rally divides itself into three well-defined tracts—(1.) The
Salt Tract, along the coast; (2.) The Arable Tract, or rice
country; and (3.) The Submontane Tract, or jungle lands.
The Salt Tract runs the whole way down the coast, and
forms a desolate strip a few miles broad. Towards the
beach it rises into sandy ridges, from 50 to 80 feet high,
sloping inland, and covered with a vegetation of low scrub
jungle. Sluggish brackish streams creep along between
banks of foetid black mud. The sand hills on the verge of
the ocean are carpeted with creepers and the wild convol¬
vulus. Inland, it spreads out into prairies of coarse long
grass and scrub jungle, which harbour wild animals in
plenty; but throughout this vast region there is scarcely a
hamlet, and only patches of rice cultivation at long inter¬
vals. From any part of the Salt Tract one may see the
boundary of the inner arable part of the district, fringed
with long lines of trees, from which every morning the
villagers drive their cattle out into the saliferous plains to
graze. The Salt Tract is purely alluvial, and appears to be
of recent date. Towards the coast the soil has a distinctly
saline taste.
Salt is largely manufactured in this tract by evaporation.
The following is the process followed :—At the beginning
of December the contractor selects his locality, about a
quarter to half a mile from the sea, and engages a class of
men called chuliyds, or heads of salt gangs. These men
receive Is. a cwt. for whatever amount of salt they turn
out. They, in their turn, engage working parties of
malangis, who are paid at the rate of 3d. to 5d. a day.
The ground is first marked out by a shallow trench, and
the grasses 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 reservoirs, 4 feet in diameter,
and 2 or 3 feet deep. A mound of earth is then piled up
to the height of 2 feet, and from 3 to 4 in diameter. It is
next hollowed out into the shape of a bowl, plastered inside
with clay, and furnished with a hole at the bottom, covered
with a layer of grass 6 inches thick. The salt-makers fill
this bowl with saline earth scraped off the adjacent land,
and pour the sea-water on it from the top. By the end of
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six hours the water has drained through into a pit at the
bottom, and runs down a thatched trench towards a reser¬
voir, whence it is transferred to the evaporators. The
latter consist of from 160 to 200 little unglazed earthenware
pots, fastened together by stiff tenacious mud, and holding
two quarts each. The neighbouring plains supply grasses
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 in spoons
made of half cocoa-nuts. The whole process is as rude
and careless as can well be imagined. The total cost
of manufacture is estimated at 2s. Id. a cwt., which
with the Government duty of 8s. 8d., makes a total cost of
10s. 9d.
The Arable Tract lies beyond the salt lands, and embraces
the chief part of the district. It is a long dead level of rich
fields, with a soil lighter in colour than that of Bengal or
Behar; much more friable, and apt to split up into small
cubes with a rectangular cleavage. A peculiar feature of
the Arable Tract is the Pats, literally the Cups, or depressed
lands near the river banks. They were probably marshes
that have partially silted up by the yearly overflow of the
streams. These Cup-lands bear the finest crops. As a
whole, the Arable Tract is a treeless region, except around
the villages, which are encircled by fine mango, pipal,
banyan, and tamarind trees, and intersected with green
shady lanes of bamboo. A few palmyras, date palms, and
screw pines (a sort of aloe, whose leaves are armed with
formidable triple rows of hook-shaped thorns) dot the
expanse, or run in straight lines between the fields. The
Submontane Tract is an undulating country with a red soil,
much broken up into ravines along the foot of the hills.
Masses of laterite, buried in hard ferruginous clay, crop up
as rocks or slabs. At Kop&ri, in Kila Ambohath, about 2
square miles are almost paved with such slabs, dark red in
colour, perfectly flat, and polished like plates of iron. A
thousand mountain torrents have scooped out for themselves
picturesque ravines, clothed with an ever-fresh verdure of
prickly thorns, stunted gnarled shrubs, and here and there
a noble forest tree. Large tracts are covered with Sal
jungle, which nowhere, however, attains to any great
height.
Balasor district is watered by six distinct river systems : 1. The
Subanrekha, literally the streak of gold, forms the boundary between
Balasor and Midnapur, flowing in a tortuous southern course, with
gigantic bends from east to west till it reaches the sea in lat. 21° 35'
N. and long. 87° 23' E. It is navigable by country craft as high
as Kalikapur, about 16 miles from the mouth, to which point the
tide also runs. Rice boats of 2 tons’ burden can make their way up
to the end of the Balasor district, and during the rains far into the
tributary state of Morbhanj. 2. The intermediate country on the
south of the Subanrekha and the north of the Burabalang, forms a
great line of drainage down from Morbhanj. It is watered by a
number of small streams, of which the principal are the Jamira,
Bans, and Bhairingi. They unite, bifurcate, and re-unite in the
wildest confusion, and at length enter the sea as the Panchpara, in
lat. 21° 31' N. and long. 87° 10' E. 3. South of this network of
rivers is the Burabalang, literally the Old Twister. It rises among
the Morbhanj hills, in lat. 21° 24' and long. 86° 36', and after
receiving two small tributaries, the Gangahar and Sunai, wriggles
into the sea in lat. 21° 28' and long. 87° 5'. Brigs, sloops, and
sea-going steamers can navigate this river as far as the town of
Balasor, about 16 miles up its twisting course, but the sand-bar
across the mouth of the river renders the entrance difficult. 4.
South of the Burabalang, a network of rivers, known as the Jamka,
find their way down the line of drainage from the western Kilgiri
hills, and enter the sea by many channels. 5. The Kansbans, ris¬
ing in Kila Ambohata, runs in a south-easterly direction, at first
almost parallel with the Nxlgiri hills, and receives from them a
number of nameless drainage streams on its northern bank. At
Birpara it bifurcates, the northern branch retaining its original
name, and entering the sea in lat. 21° 12' 25", long. 86° 52' 10".
The southern branch receives the name of Gammai, and falls into
the sea 6 miles south of the Kansbans. This river is navigable only