TRINIDAD AND BERMUDEZ ASPHALTS 19 



TRINIDAD AND BERMUDEZ ASPHALTS AND THEIR USE 

 IN HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION 



By CLIFFORD RICHARDSON, M. Am. Soc. C. B. 



NEW YORK CITY 



BITUMEN in its various forms is widely distributed in nature, as 

 natural gas, petroleum, maltha, asphalt and other solid forms. 

 Of the deposits of asphalt which are of great industrial importance there 

 are two which have attracted world wide attention, the so-called Trini- 

 dad Pitch Lake and the Bermudez Pitch Lake, the name lake being 

 applied to them very naturally, as they consist of a great expanse of more 

 or less mobile character, covering many acres, and resembling in many 

 ways a similar expanse of water. It is proposed, in the following pages, 

 to give an account of these remarkable deposits, the manner of 

 exploiting them and their industrial applications in highway con- 

 struction. 



The Trinidad Pitch Lake 



The Island of Trinidad lies off the north coast of South America, 

 between 10° and 11° of latitude and 61° and 62° longitude. It is 

 bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, on the east by the Atlantic, 

 on the south by a narrow channel, into which flow the waters of the 

 northern and most westerly mouths of the Orinoco, and on the west by 

 the Gulf of Paria, the two latter bodies of water separating it from the 

 mainland of Venezuela. 



It is of an irregular rectangular shape, with promontories extending 

 from its southwestern and northwestern corners which are several miles 

 in length, between which and the mainland are the narrow straits 

 known as the Dragon's and Serpent's Mouths. These promontories from 

 a large portion of the northern and southern boundaries of the shallow 

 rectangular Gulf of Paria, whose outlets to the ocean are through the 

 Dragon's and Serpent's Mouths. The island has an average length of 

 48 miles and breadth of 36, containing about 1,750 square miles, and 

 being about one fifth the area of the state of Vermont. It is, as a whole, 

 a flat country, with a high and striking mountain chain descending 

 abruptly into the sea along its northern shore, and with low central 

 and southern ranges of less importance. Its coasts are naturally abrupt 

 on the north, consist of low bluffs on the south and are flat on the east 

 and west. The only harbors are on the western coast. 



