THE OIL-SUPPLY OF THE WORLD. m 



sibly some day the mountain-crust will subside, and its site be occupied 

 by a bituminous lake, like the Dead Sea of Palestine. 



Masses of this chapopote are found floating on the rivers and 

 lagoons, or cast up by the waves all along the Gulf coast, when it is 

 collected for sale, and is of excellent quality — clean, hard, and brill- 

 iant. Great beds of this substance are found along the upper waters 

 of the Grijalva River, in the State of Tabasco. The deposits of pe- 

 troleum are specially noted at El Chapopotito, in the county of Ozu- 

 luama, in Vera Cruz. 



Though no trace of mineral oil has yet been detected in the rocky 

 regions of Central America, its presence has been abundantly proved 

 on the north of the Southern Continent, where, among the most im- 

 portant of recent discoveries, rank the oil-springs on the shore of Lake 

 Maracaibo, in Venezuela, which, together with the great undeveloped 

 coal-mines and other sources of mineral wealth, promise so rich a 

 future to that now waste and desert country. 



The chief features of the country between the Cordilleras and the 

 Rio Zulia are the numerous asphalt-mines and petroleum-fountains 

 which abound all around the base of a chain of low hills which lie be- 

 tween the Rio Zulia and Rio Tara. Two other rivers water this 

 country, the Rio Catatiffmbo and the Rio Sardinarte, which probably 

 accounts for the luxuriance of the cool, dark forest, that contrives to 

 flourish in a region known to the people of Maracaibo as JEl Infierno, 

 by reason of the multitude of fountains and deposits of petroleum and 

 asphalt. 



At one point a raised sand-bank is honeycombed with circular holes, 

 from which gush impetuous streams of boiling water and petroleum. 

 Columns of white steam are also ejected with deafening roar. A care- 

 ful observer estimated that the flow from one of these streams equaled 

 5,760 gallons per diem. At present all this good petroleum is soon 

 lost again in the earth, and an immense quantity of inflammable gas 

 also escapes and ignites, playing in weird flashes among the dark tree- 

 tops. This earth-born lightning is seen by vessels lying off the bar, 

 and is known as El farol de Maracaibo. This group of springs lies 

 near the confluence of the Tara and Sardinarte Rivers, which are navi- 

 gable for small craft of under fifty tons. But petroleum-fountains, 

 deposits of bitumen, asphalt, and other resinous minerals, lie scattered 

 in all directions ; and there is abundant proof of the existence of rich 

 coal-seams, which ere long must certainly create a revolution in Vene- 

 zuelan commerce. 



Near San Timoleo the accumulation of asphalt and petroleum is so 

 extensive as to form a large lake, somewhat resembling the celebrated 

 Pitch Lake on the Isle of Trinidad, where a strange, thick, flexible 

 crust of black bituminous matter is said to float on the surface of a 

 fresh-water lake. But, as no one has yet arrived at even estimating 

 the depth of the crust, it is difficult to see how the existence of the 



