38* On the Pitch-Lake of Trinidad. 



processes. It is a very vague inference, because hard woods be- 

 come charred by submersion, to say that coal is formed by it. 

 In respect to the circumstance of finding the remains of the ve- 

 getable kingdom in the coal strata, we may observe on this pitch 

 lake and ground a remarkable coincidence. The remains of the 

 coal-field exhibit the vegetation of a hot climate and a moist 

 situation: the vegetation of a country abounding in ferns, 

 arundinaceous plants, as the bamboo and palms. About the 

 pitch-lake all these abound in a remarkable degree ; they are, 

 in fact, growing on it, and with them a palm called the pitch- 

 lake palm, from the peculiarity of its thriving there. Supposing 

 therefore, that coal was of similar origin, it may have been simi- 

 larly situated with respect to vegetation ; and we have no diffi- 

 culty whatever in discerning how it is that vegetables become so 

 abundant in it. If the pitch-grounds at Trinidad were now to be 

 covered or buried beneath other rocks, the vegetables already 

 collected in them, or about them, would hereafter occasionally 

 be found. We have seen that there are pitch-beds in the sea in 

 a soft state sufficient to receive the anchor of a ship, and there- 

 fore shells of marine origin may be found in this substance. In 

 the deep fissures of the pitch-lake are pools of fresh water con- 

 taining fish ; and at a very short distance from them the marine 

 beds may also receive salt-water fish. Besides this, a river may 

 run over the pitch -grounds, and then we shall have every va- 

 riety. Hence some very puzzling and opposite appearances 

 may be found in juxta-position. The coal formations of our 

 own country may probably have been originally in the same 

 state as now are the pitch-grounds of Trinidad, which would tend 

 considerably to explain some of the present anomalous appear- 

 ances. The pitch-grounds, in my opinion, are primordials, and 

 do not result from the conversion of vegetable matter. The bo- 

 tany of the pitch grounds would tend to elucidate the subject of 

 organic remains found in the coal strata; and I am satisfied that 

 a very surprising conformity would be discovered between them. 

 No one dreams of the pitch-lake being formed from the sur- 

 rounding vegetation. — Webster's Voyage made in tJie years 

 1829-31, by order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 

 vol. ii. 



