420 S. F. Pechham—The Fitch Lake of Trinidad. 



continuous, it would pass under tbe lake at a great depth. At about 

 a mile to tbe nortb-west of tbe lake another bed of brown coal crops 

 out upon the shore. It is about twenty feet thick. From the 

 occurrence of such considerable accumulations of vegetable matter, 

 so situated as apparently to pass under the lake, it seems reasonable 

 to regard them as the source of the pitchy matter. Indeed, many 

 pieces of wood may be observed in the beds of brown coal, which 

 differ in no respect in their appearance from many of the pieces 

 thrown up in the lake itself." 



Mr. Manross ^ is completely at sea in his points of the compass. 



The observations upon which the descriptions of this lake, from 

 which I have made careful abstracts, were based, were made from 

 forty to one hundred and sixty years ago. I have been able to 

 verify them in almost every particular, and these descriptions 

 clearly portray the appearance and condition of the lake at the 

 time I vihited it in March, 1895. In addition to these descriptions, 

 other observations quite different in character and purpose have 

 been made concerning the island of Trinidad, and incidentally of 

 tlie Pitch Lake, during the last thirty-five years. In 1860 Messrs. 

 Wall and Sawkins published quite an extended report upon the 

 geology of Trinidad, including observations upon the occurrence of 

 bitumen throughout the island.^ 



Dr. Nugent remarked in the article above quoted: "and it must 

 be remembered that geological enquiries are not conducted here 

 with that facility with which they are in some other parts of the 

 world ; the soil is almost universally covered with the thickest and 

 most luxuriant vegetation, and the stranger is soon exhausted and 

 overcome by the scorching rays of the vertical sun." ^ These 

 observations exactly express the conditions under which these 

 gentlemen performed their undertaking. It is, therefore, not sur- 

 prising that errors should have been found in their conclusions 

 and corrected by later observers. 



Mr. J. R. Lechmere Guppy, in 1892, thus stated the conclusions 

 that he had reached in reference to Trinidad Geology*: — 



" It appears from the evidence derived from the nature of the 

 Naparima rocks, their fossil contents, and the movements which 



^ American Journal of Science, part ii, vol. xx, p. 153, 1855. 



^ Eeport on the Geology of Trinidad, by order of the Lords Commissioners of 

 Her Majesty's Treasury, London, 18G0. 



3 loc. cit., p. 70. 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1892, toI. xlviii, pp. 519-536. Ibid., vol. xxii, 

 571 ; ibid., vol. xxiv, p. 11 ; ibid., vol. xxvi, p. 413; ibid., vol. xlviii, p. 221. 



The ' ' Naparima rocks ' ' consist of an anticlical that, abutting in a bliifP near 

 San Fernando, on the Gulf of Paria, extends across the island almost to the east 

 coast. They also appear on the mainland of Venezuela near the Bay of Cumaua. 

 The lowest strata are Cretaceous, and are called, together with the Eocene above 

 them, the " Older Parian." The "Newer Parian" above is Miocene, and contains 

 lignites and bitumen. Here orbitoides and nummulites are found in a mass of rock 

 projecting into the Gulf of Paria, supposed to be Miocene. In the Western 

 Hemisphere orbitoides are supposed to characterize the Eocene. In the Eastern 

 Hemisphere nummulites are characteristic of the same formation. The deposit 

 fiiat here contains them both lies between other Miocene deposits. 



