Kalabagh Town
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Kalabagh Town
Town in the Isa Khel tahsil of Mianwali District, Punjab, situated in 32 degree 58' N. and 71 degree 33' E. Population (1901), 5,824. The town is picturesquely situated at the foot of the Salt Range, on the right bank of the Indus, at the point where the river debouches from the hills, 105 miles below Attock. The houses nestle against the side of a precipitous hill of solid rock-salt, piled one upon another in successive tiers, the roof of each tier forming the street which passes in front of the row immediately above. Long before the British annexation of the Punjab, Kalabagh was famous for its salt ; and some of the wonders told of it by travellers as long ago as 1808 may still be seen in its houses built of and on rock-salt, its roads cut out of the solid salt rock, and its immense exposures of salt, sometimes closely resembling alabaster. The Kalabagh hills are a continuation of the cis-Indus portion of the Salt Range, but are remarkable for the quantity of salt exposed, and the purity, closeness of grain, and hard- ness of a great proportion of it. Unlike the operations elsewhere in the Salt Range, which are purely mining, the salt is here quarried at the surface. There are twelve quarries, some situated on the right bank of the Indus, and some on the right bank of the Lun Nullah, which runs into the Indus on its right bank, at the base of a hill known as the Saudagar hill. Enormous quantities of salt lie exposed here, underlying Tertiary strata, in workable seams of from 4 to 20 feet thick, alternating with seams of impure salt and marl. The deposits rise to a height of about 200 feet above the bed of the Gor gorge, the seams striking south to north and dipping to the west at an angle of about 70 .
The salt is slightly better in quality than that of the
Mayo and Warcha Mines, and is in high favour with traders ; but it
is handicapped in competition with those salts, because the Indus lies
between it and the Mari station of the Kundian-Campbellpore Railway.
The quarries lie from half a mile to a mile from the sale depot at
Kukranwala Vandah on the right bank of the Indus, where the miners
deliver the salt at the rate of Rs. 4.2 per 100 maunds. The whole
of the operations connected with the salt up to the time that it is
deposited in store in the depot are in the hands of the miners. At
the depot the salt is weighed out to purchasers and cleared under the
supervision of the inspector in charge. The total quantity issued in
1903-4 amounted to 191,750 maunds, of which 150,062 maunds were
removed by rail and 32,161 by river. Alum also occurs in the
neighbouring hills, and forms a considerable but decreasing item of
local trade, the out-turn in 1904 being about 3,500 maunds, which
sold for Rs. 3 per maund (82^ lb.). The town possesses a manufacture
of striped cloth (susi) and of iron instruments and vessels from metal
imported from the Kanigoram hill.
The municipality was created in 1875. The income and expenditure
during the ten years ending 1902-3 averaged Rs. 7,100 and Rs. 6,600.
In 1903-4 the income was Rs. 5,600, chiefly derived from octroi; and
the expenditure was Rs. 6,700. The town contains a dispensary and
a municipal primary school. An A wan family, which resides in Kala-
bagh, has a certain supremacy over the whole of the tribesmen, the
representative of the family bearing the title of Malik.
