68 Dr. Nugent o« the Pitch-lake 



might In all probability afford an inexhaustible supply of an essential 

 article of naval stores, and being situated on the margin of the sea 

 could be wrought and shipped with little inconvenience or expense.* 

 It would however be great injustice to Sir Alexander Cochrane not 

 to state explicitly that he has at various times, during his long and 

 active command on the Leeward Island station, taken considerable 

 pains to insure a proper and fair trial of this mineral production for 

 the highly important uses of which it is generally believed to be 

 capable. But whether it has arisen from certain perverse occur- 

 rences or from the prejudice of the mechanical superintendants of 

 the Colonial Dock Yards, or really, as some have pretended, from an 

 absolute unfitness of the substance in question ; the views of the 

 gallant admiral have I believe been invariably thwarted, or his exer- 

 tions rendered altogether fruitless. I was at Antigua in 1 809 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 contami- 

 nated with sand and other foreign substances. The best way would 

 probably be to have it properly prepared on the spot, and brought 

 to the state in which it may be serviceable, previously to its expor- 

 tation. I have frequently seen it used to pay the bottoms of small 

 vessels, for which it is particularly well adapted, as it preserves them 

 from the numerous tribe of worms so abundant in tropical countries, f 

 There seems indeed no reason why it should not when duly pre- 



*This island contains also a great quantity of valuable timber, and several plants 

 ■which yield excellent hemp. 



+ The different kinds of bitumen have always been found particularly obnoxious to the 

 class of insects ; there can be little doubt but that they formed ingredients in the Egyptian 

 compost for embalming bodies, and the Arabians are said to avail themselves of them ia 

 preserving the trappings of their horses. Vide Jameson's Mineralogy. 



