of the Island ofTrimdad. 73 



to have read, is that which borders on the Gulph of Taman in Grim 

 Tartary : from the representation of travellers, springs of naptha 

 and petroleum equally abound, and they describe volcanic mounds 

 precisely similar to those of Point Icaque. Pallas's explanation of 

 their origin seems to me very satisfactory, and I think it not impro- 

 bable that the River Don and Sea of Azof may have acted the same 

 part in producing these appearances in the one case, as the Orinoco 

 and Gulph of Paria appear to have done in the other.* It may be 

 supposed that the destruction of a forest or perhaps even a great 

 Savanna on the spot, would be a more obvious mode of accounting 

 for this singular phenomenon ; but, as I shall immediately state, all 

 this part of the island is of recent alluvial formation, and the land all 

 along this coast is daily receiving a considerable accession from the 

 surrounding water. The Pitch-lake with the circumjacent tract, 

 being now on the margin of the sea, must in like manner have had an 

 origin of no very distant date ; besides, according to the above repre- 

 sentation of Capt. Mallet, and which has been frequently corrobo- 

 rated, a fluid bitumen oozes up and rises to the surface of the water 

 on both sides of the island, not where the sea has encroached on and 

 overwhelmed the ready-formed land, but where it is obviously in a 

 very rapid manner depositing and forming a new soil. 



From a consideration of the great hardness, the specific gravity, 

 and the general external characters of the specimens submitted a few 

 years ago to the examination of Mr. Hatchett, that gentleman was 

 led to suppose that a considerable part of the aggregate mass at Tri- 

 nidad was not pure mineral pitch or asphaltum, but rather a porous 

 stone of the argillaceous genus much impregnated with bitumen. 



* Vide Universal Mag. for Feb. 1 808, Mrs. Guthrie's Tour in the Tauride, or Voyages 

 de Pallas. 



