SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



quent both in our own country and abroad ; the most remarkabfe* 

 perhaps, among ourselves, is that of Pitchford, in Shropshire, where 

 the bituminous fluid bubbles forth from the earth like a fountain. 

 In Italy they are more common still, and very general in the isle of 

 Barbadoes. But the most extraordinary bituminous springs, of 

 which we have any account, are in the Birinan empire. In the 

 province of Arracon Major Symes met with a considerable cluster 

 of them, the depths of whose wells was about thirty-seven fathoms ; 

 and the column of oil contained in them generally as high as the 

 waist of those who descended for the purpose of collecting it. The 

 Lycos of Pliny, which, as jus f observed, he places in India, wa& 

 probably one of these very fountains. A lighted torch or bundle 

 of lighted tow, applied to any of these springs, will immediately 

 set the whole surface in a blaze ; and, perhaps* if such torch or tow 

 were to be strongly impregnated with highly concentrated nitric, OP 

 sulphuric acid, they would produce the same effect, even without 

 being lighted. The essential oil that most certainly inflames when 

 suddenly blended with these mineral acids, is that of turpentine, 

 an oil allied to bitumen. It is probable, therefore, that in the case 

 to which Lucretius alludes, the torch or tow made use of was always 

 previously impregnated, if not with nitric OP sulphuric acid, with 

 some other substance possessed of a similar inflammability. The 

 inhabitants of the Ligurian republic have lately employed, with great 

 advantage, the petroleum of a spring recently discovered at Amiano, 

 for the purpose of lighting their towns and cities: the petroleum is 

 pure; its specific gravity to that of water being as 83 to 100 : to 

 oil olive as 91 to 100. In the neighbourhood has also been lately 

 discovered a stratum of bituminous wood, which is of equal use as 

 a fuel. It easily inflames and gives a stronger heat than the charcoal 

 of oak. Its cinders contain potash, oxyd of iron, lime and magnesia. 

 See Annales de Ghemie, vol. xlv. 



" It is to a tree and a fountain of this description, that Camoena 

 refers in the following verses of his Lusiad ; which I quote in further 

 continuation that I have here rightly conjectured the kind of spring 

 adverted to by our own poet : Cant. x. 135. 



' Ve naquella que o tempo tornon llha 

 Que tambein flamas tremulas, vapora, 

 A fonte que oleo mana, ed a maravilha 

 Do cheiroso licor, que o tronco chora. 



