156 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



effected by artificial heat, and thus they may be (raced through the 

 various transformations of vegetable matter. I was accordingly 

 particular in my enquiries with regard to the existence of beds of 

 coal, but could not learn that there was any certain trace of that 

 substance in the island; and though it may exist at a great depth, I 

 saw no strata that indicate it. A friend, indeed, gave me specimens 

 of a kind of bituminous shale mixed with sand, and which he 

 brought from Point Cedar, about twenty miles distant, and I find 

 Mr. Anderson speaks of the soil near the pilch lake containing 

 burnt cinders, but I imagine he may have taken for them the small 

 fragments of the bitumen itself. 



An examination of this tract of country could not fail, I think, 

 to be highly gratifying to those who embrace tlie Huttonian theory 

 of the earth ; for they might behold the numerous branches of one 

 of the largest rivers of the world (the Oroonoco) bringing down so 

 amazing a quantify of earthly particles as to discolour the sea in a 

 most remarkable manner for many leagues distant * ; they might 

 see these earthly particles deposited by the influence of powerful 

 currents on the shore* of the Gulf of Paria, and particularly on 

 I he western side of the island of Tiinidad ; they might there 

 find vast collections of bituminous substances, beds of porcelain, 



* No scene can be more magnificent than that presented on a near approach 

 to the north-western coast of Trinidad. The sea is not only changed from a 

 light green to a deep brown colour, but has in an extraordinary degree that 

 rippling, confused and whirling motion, which arises from the violence of 

 contending currents, and which prevail here in so remarkable a manner, par- 

 ticularly at those seasons when the Oroonoco is so swollen by periodical rains, 

 that vessels are not unfrequently several days or weeks in stemming them, or 

 perhaps are irresistibly borne before thfm far out of their destined tract. The 

 dark verdure of lofty mountains, covered with impenetrable woods to the very 

 summits, whence, in the most humid of climates, torrents impetuously rush 

 through deep ravines to the sea ; three narrow passages into the Gulf of Parja, 

 between rugged mountains of brown micaceous schist, on whose cavernout 

 sides the eddying surge dashes with fury, and where a vessel must necessarily 

 be for some time Embayed, with a depth of water scarcely to be fathomed by 

 the lead, present altogether a scene which may well be conceived to have 

 impressed the mind of the navigator who first beheld it with considerable sur- 

 prise and awe. Columbui made this land in his third voyage, and gave it the 

 name of the Bocas delDrago. From the wonderful discoloration and turbidity 

 of the water, he sagaciously concluded that a very large river was near, and 

 consequently a great continent. 



