of the Island of Trinidad. 71 



formations of vegetable matter. I was accordingly particular in my 

 inquiries 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 indi- 

 cate it. A friend indeed gave me specimens of a kind of bituminous 

 shale mixed with sand, which he brought from Point Cedar about 

 twenty miles distant, and I find Mr. Anderson speaks of the soil near 

 'the Pitch-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 the Huttonian theory of 

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

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

 amazing a quantity of earthy particles as to discolour the sea in a 

 most remarkable manner for many leagues distant,* they might see 



* 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 pre- 

 vail here in so remarkable a manner, particularly at those seasons when the Orinoco is 

 swollen by periodical rains, that vessels are not unfrequently several days or weeks in 

 stemming them, or perhaps arc irresistibly borne before them far out of their destined 

 track. 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 ii^to the Gulph of Paria, between nigged 

 mountains of brown micaceous schist, on whose cavernous sides the eddying surge dashes 

 ■with fury, and where a vessel must necessarily be for some time embayed, m ith 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 surprise and awe. Columbus made this land in his third voyage, and gave 

 it the name of the Bocas del Drago. From the wonderful discoloration and turbidity 

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

 a great continent. 



