(b) except for agricultural or building purposes, excavates, collects or possesses salt-earth in any local area where it is contraband salt; or (c) manufactures contraband salt in any other way than by excavating or collecting salt-earth; or (d) purchases, obtains, possesses, sells or weighs contraband salt other than salt-earth, knowing or having reason to believe it to be contraband; or (e) refines saltpetre without such license as is prescribed by the Act; or (f) attempts to commit, or within the meaning of the Indian Penal Code abets the commission of any of the above acts, shall on conviction be punishable for every such offence with imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or with fine not exceeding five hundred rupees, or with both. It is noted, in the Gazetteer of the Bellary district, that "at the time when the Company came into possession of the district, the salt consumed in it was of two kinds, namely, the earth-salt manufactured from saline soils by men of the Uppara caste, and the marine salt made on the west coast. The latter was imported by the Lambadis and Korachas, who brought it up the ghats by means of large droves of pack-bullocks. The earth-salt was made in what were known as modas, which were peculiar to the Ceded Districts, and were especially common in Bellary. A heap of earth was piled up, and on the top of it were hollowed out one or more circular basins, some five feet in diameter and two feet deep. From the bottom of these basins, channels lined with chunam (lime) ran down to one or more reservoirs similarly lined. Salt-earth was collected in the places where it effloresced naturally in the dry months, and taken to the moda on pack-buffaloes. It was thrown into the basins, and then a quantity of water was poured upon it. The brine so obtained flowed through the channels at the bottom of the basins into the reservoirs. From these it was baled with chatties (pots) into a set of masonry evaporating pans, carefully levelled and plastered with chunam, where it was left to be converted into salt by solar evaporation. Each lot of salt-earth, which was thus lixiviated, was taken from the basins and thrown outside them, and this process constantly repeated gradually raised the level of the moda and the basins, which were perpetually being re-made on the top of it. Some of the modas gradually grew to be as much as twenty feet in height. When they became too high for the buffaloes to carry the salt-earth up to their summits with comfort, they were abandoned, and others started elsewhere. The earth-salt made in this manner was neither so good nor so strong as marine salt, but it was much used by the poorer classes and for cattle, and thus interfered with the profits of the Government salt monopoly, which was established in 1805. As early as 1806, therefore, it was proposed to prohibit its manufacture. The chief arguments against any such step were that it would inflict hardship upon the