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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 15, p. 364.

364 KOLJBA DISTRICT to Bombay, for they may be said to lie around the mouth of the harbour. The.curved knees are particularly adapted for the building of small vessels. The timber trade of the District has two main branches-an inland trade in wood for building purposes, and a coast trade in firewood and crooks for ship-building. The total area of forest in 1903-4 was about 458' square miles, of which 449 square miles were 'reserved,' chiefly in Pen and Nagothana. The revenue in the same year was Rs. 83,750- Except patches of mangrove along the river banks, the forests of If olāba are all on the slopes and tops of hills. In the northern tdlukas Karjat has valuable Reserves in both the Western Ghāts and the Matheran-Tavli range. Panvel also has a considerable forest area, but much of it, except the teak-coppiced slopes of Mānikgarh, is of little value. Each of the central tdlukas-Pen, AlIbag, and Roha-has large rich forests, while the less thickly wooded southern tdlukas of Mangaon and Mahad have few Reserves. Teak is the most widely spread and the most valuable tree. Next come the mango, sisu, black-wood; dhaura (Anogeissus latafoliā), once plentiful but now rather scarce; and the three principal evergreen hill-forest trees-ain, a valuable and common tree for house-building and tool-making, jdmba, and kinjal (Terminalia paniculata). The ajta (Bauhinia racemosa), though of almost no use as timber, supplies leaves for country cigarettes or bidis. Nut-yielders include the avla (Phyllanthus Emblica), the tamarind, and the hirda (Terminalia Chebula) ; and liquor-yielders the mahud, the coco-nut, the palmyra, and the wild thick-stemmed palm. Minor forest produce consists of fruits, gums, and grass. The only mineral known to occur in Kolaba is iron, of which traces are found in laterite in different parts of the District. Aluminium occurs in the form of transcite in the hills around Mātheran. Good building stone is everywhere abundant; sand is plentiful in the rivers; and lime, both nodular and from shells, is burnt in small quantities. Salt is extensively made by evaporation, and its production furnishes profitable employment in the fair season, when the cultivators are not engaged in agriculture. It is produced in large quan- communications Trade and tities in the Pen and Panvel tąlukas, but the Pen . trade is falling off. The District contains 155 salt- works, which produce nearly 2-1 million maunds of salt yearly. The weav- ing of silk, a relic of Portuguese times, is practised at Chaul ; but the manufacture has declined since 1668, about which time a migration of weavers took place and the first street was built in Bombay to receive them. The extraction of oil from sesamum, the coco-nut, and the ground-nut, and the preparation of coco-nut fibre, also support many families. The manufacture of cart-wheels at Panvel is a large industry. ' This figure is taken from the Forest Administration Report for 1903-4.