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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



constructed on the Bay of Paria, near the lake, and a trolley line and 

 tramway, leading from the wharf up to and out upon the lake in a loop, 

 by which the pitch since then has been transported direct from the sur- 

 face of the lake to the vessel being loaded. Formerly the pitch was car- 

 ried from the beach to ships lying in the bay in lighters, the shipping 

 entailing a great deal of labor from repeated handling. Since the tram- 

 way was installed, the pitch is dug along the line of the tramway and 

 thrown into iron buckets, resting on trucks that are propelled along the 

 tramway by an endless cable. Great difficulty was encountered when the 

 tramway was laid to prevent its sinking in the pitch, which, while hard 

 enough on the surface to bear up a loaded team, will slowly engulf any 



Fig. 5. A Lot Outside the Lake that has Filled in Six Months after being Excavated- 



20 Feet. 



article of even moderate weight. This trouble was overcome by laying 

 the tramway on a bed of the leaves of the Moriche palm, some of which 

 are twenty-five feet in length. When the car-buckets are loaded they 

 are run to the power-house in groups of three or four, where, after 

 being weighed, they are transferred by an ingenious device from the 

 trucks to a trolley that runs on an endless rope from the lake to the 

 wharf, where the contents of the buckets are dumped into the hold of 

 the ship-like coal. The plant will handle 500 tons a day in the manner 

 described. 



Immense quantities of the pitch lie outside the lake, and the pitch 

 from these deposits, wherever worked, is still shipped by means of 



