GAZETTEER
By 1868 the total value of the imports and exports, including treasure, had risen to nearly 43 lakhs. But thirty-five years later, in 1902—03, the figure was still about the same, and the town cannot now be said to be in a flourishing condition. In the thirty years between the census of 1871 and that of 1901 its population only increased by 1,468 persons and the advance was relatively smaller than in any other town in the district except Rázám. The imports consist chiefly of cotton twist and piece goods and the exports (to give them in order of value) of gingelly seed (sent mainly to Marseilles), other seeds, tanued hides and skins, raw and manufactured jute (sent to Dundee and Hamburg, chiefly), gingelly oil, and the produce of the neighbouring hill-tracts, such as myrabolams, horns, etc. The town owes its present importance to the fact that it is the nearest port to Vizianagram through which all the hill-produce comes, but when the railway runs from the hills to Vizagapatam it will probably dwindle rapidly. Seven European firms have export agencies in the place at present, and there are two steam, and two hand, presses for baling the raw jute of the district. The Clau Line steamers call regularly and the Bank of Madras has a branch in the town. The new port light erected in 1903 consists of a white dioptric light of the fourth order of 750 candle-power flashing four times a minute, and is visible eleven miles out at sea in clear weather.
The port consists of the mouth of the Chittivalasa river, which is almost silted up for much of the year but has been known to be scoured out to a depth of 16 ft., and a bight or bay protected on the south by a hill which runs a short distance out from the line of the coast and terminates seawards in a reef of rocks. The anchorage is in five fathoms about half a mile from the shore and cargo is landed and shipped by means of masúla boats.
Mr. W. Parkes, an expert sent by Government in 1882 to report on the capabilities of the port, gave it as his opinion that the existence of the river mouth so close to it was a great objection to the undertaking of any permanent works for the protection of the anchorage. He said 1[1] —
'The river is insignificant at ordinary times, but in floods it fills the eleven arches of a bridge, each 30 feet span and 15 feet high, with a torrent of silt-laden water. The solid matter thus carried to the sea is dispersed by the waves and currents over a large area, so
that its effects are imperceptable upon the coast; but if those dispersing forces were interfered with, which it is the very object of a
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- ↑ 1 G.O., No. 1718 W., Public Works, dated 8th July 1882.
