MINERAL SPRINGS. 89 



out the southern division. A substance nearly allied to lignite 

 has also been found at Savanetta ; it is compact, and of a dead, 

 dark fracture ; it burns with difficulty, and could not be used as 

 fuel, unless mixed with some other substance. 



Bitumen, or fossil pitch, another member of the carboniferous 

 system, exists in inexhaustible abundance throughout the whole 

 extent of the southern division. Point la Brea, in the county of 

 St. Patrick, is formed altogether of hardened pitch, which extends 

 into the gulf. The Pitch Lake, near the village of La Brea, in the 

 same locality, is the great natural curiosity of Trinidad, and is 

 really worth visiting. A pond of soft bitumen also exists within 

 the site of the town of San Fernando, and another between Moruga 

 and Guayaguayare ; the latter is known by the appellation of 

 " Lagon Bouf," from the peculiar noise produced by the bubbling 

 of the soft bitumen. At Oropuche, Guapa, and Quemada, are 

 likewise small craters of the same substance. About two miles 

 from the Yaro, in the spring of the year, a periodical but brief 

 submarine eruption occurs, throwing up quantities of pitch, with 

 which the beach is afterwards strewn. Many of these bitumen 

 craters exist at the bottom of the gulf, along the line of coast from 

 San Fernando to Trois ; their eruptions occasionally agitate the 

 waves, and eject considerable quantities of petroleum. The pitch 

 cast up on the beach is generally in the form of lumps or cakes. 



It is to me evident that our pitch deposits must have a sub- 

 marine communication with those of El Buen Pastor, in the 

 canton of Maturin. " These springs," says Baron von Humboldt, 

 " proceed, probably, from the beds of limestone which form the 

 Brigantine and Cocollar." 



MINERAL SPRINGS. Two mineral springs only have been 

 hitherto discovered in the island ; one of these is in the valley of 

 Maraccas, at the foot of a high hill, and nearly in the bed of the 

 St. Joseph or Maraccas river ; it is a cold spring. According to 

 Dr. T. Davy, " it has a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen, 

 and there is a disengagement of gas in bubbles at its surface." 

 From an examination of a portion which he took with him, he 

 found it to contain the following ingredients, viz., "carbonate and 

 sulphate of lime, carbonate of potash, common salt, and traces of 

 silica, and to be impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, and 

 that pretty strongly, and with carbonic acid gas : its specific 

 gravity is 1-0016." 



