On the Pitch Lake of the Island of Trinidad. 165 



the gallant admiral have, 1 believe, been Invariably thwarted, 

 or his exertions rendered altogether fruitless, I was at An- 

 tigua in 1809, when a transport arrived laden with this pitch 

 for the use of the dock-yard at English Harbour: it had 

 evidently been hastily collected with little care or zeal from 

 the beach, and was of course much contaminated with sand 

 and other foreign substances. The best way would pro- 

 bably be to have it properly prepared on the spot, and 

 brought to the state in which it may be serviceable, pre- 

 viously to its exportation. I have frequently seen it used 

 to pay the bottoms of small vessels, for which it is particu- 

 larly well adapted, as it preserves ihem from the numerous 

 tribe of worms so abundant in tropica! countries*. There 

 seems indeed no reason why it sliould not when duly pre- 

 pared and attenuated be applicable to all the purposes of the 

 petroleum of Zante, a well-known article of commerce in 

 the Adriatic, or that of the district in Burmah, where 

 400,000 hogsheads are said to be collected annually t* 



It is observed by Capt. Mallet, in his ShortTopographical 

 Sketch of the island, that " near Cape la Brea (la Brave) a 

 little to the south-west, is a gulf or vortex, which in stormy 

 weather gushes out, raising the water five or six feet, and 

 covers the surface for a considerable space with petroleum 

 or tar :" and he adds, that" on the east coast in the Bay of 

 Mayaro, there is another gulf or vortex similar to the for- 

 mer, which in the months of March and June produces a 

 detonation like thunder, having some flame with a thick 

 black smoke, which vanishes away immediately : in about 

 twenty-four hours afterwards is found along the shore of 

 the bay a quantity of bitumen or pitch, about three or four 

 inches thick, which is employed with success." Captain 

 Mallet likewise quotes Gumilla, as stating in his Description 

 of the Orinoco, that about seventy years ago "a spot of 

 land on the western coast of this island, near halfway be- 

 tween the capital, an Indian village sank suddenly, and was 

 immediately replaced by a small lake of pitch, to the great 

 terror of the inhabitants." 



I bave had no opportunity of ascertaining personally whe- 

 ther these statements are accurate, though sufficiently pro- 

 bable from what is known to occur iu other parts of the 



• 'i'hc clifferent"kinds of bitumen have always been found yiartlcularly ob- 

 noxioufi tn tlie class of insects. There can be little doubt l)ut that they formed 

 ipRrtdicnts in the Egyptian compost far cnib:ihuiagl)odios,and the Arabians 

 arc said to avail themselves of them in preserving the trappings of their 

 hurie--. Vide Jameson's Mineralogy. 



t Vide Aikin\ Dictionary ol Chemistry, quoted from Captaiu Cox in the 

 Asiatic Researches, 



L 3 world ; 



