The chips are then put into earthen pots, in the proportion of 3 seers of chips to 5 seers of water, the pots being roughly 1' high 7" diameter.
These pots are then placed in two parallel rows on the top of a long furnace, the pots being sealed with clay into the small holes left on the top of the furnace for their reception, thus closing all cracks to the draught and distributing the heat from the fire evenly throughout the flume of the furnace.
The boiling goes on for about six hours. As water evaporates fresh water is poured in so as to keep the chips aiwavs well covered. At the end of this period the contents of pot 2 are poured into the practically empty pot 1, the contents of pot 3 into pot 2 and so on. This is not done quickly but leisurely and water added to rinse the chips. Where the iron pan is used, the extract is poured into that instead of into pot 1,
In this way the liquid contents of all the pots eventually finds its way to pot 1 on each row, or into the iron pan where it is still farther evaporated until sufficiently concentrated. It is not known how long this takes, but apparently there is no hurry about it, and it may stand for some days or for a few hours. When ready it is of the consistency of a thick treacle, and is poured out into small receptacles made of the leaves of belangor (Bauhinia Vahlii) where it cools and thickens ; eventually being packed into baskets
for transport to Amritsar.
The larger part of the 'resaunt' extract appears to be exported from Amritsar to Multan, whence it probably extends to Sindh and other desert tracts. Its use is largely in mixing with drinking water. What its effect on the water is, is not known to the writer at present, but its presence probably neutralises a salt, as it is said to make the water "cooler."
51. B. asiatica, Roxb. h.f.b.l, i. 110. Roxb. 300.
Habitat:—Dry valleys of the Himalaya, from Bhutan to Garhwal, Behar, on Parasnath, Lower hills Dehra.
Vern.:— Kilmora (Kumaon); Kingora (Dehra Dun and Garhwal); Mate-Kissi ; Chitra (Nepal), Kishornoi (Jaunsar).
Uses:— The medicinal uses of this are the same as those of B. aristata.
An erect thorny shrub, 3-6 ft. Bark soft, pale, light brown, yellow in bast layers, corky outside, and deeply cleft vertically. Wood yellow, hard Easily recognized by its net-veined leaves. The arrested leaf-bearing shoots often on the top of stout woody tuberculate branchlets of previous years. Leaves 1-3 in., rarely acute, rigidly coriaceous, white beneath, obovate, sometimes nearly orbicular, nerves and veins strongly reticulate, laciniose
