203 PITCH LAKE IN TRINIDAD. 



ticular system of geology, I confess an explanation similar 

 to this appears to me sufficiently probable, and consonant 

 with the known phenomena of nature. A vast river, like the 

 Orinoco, must for ages have rolled down great quantities of 

 •woody and vegetable bodjes, which from certain causes, as 

 the influence of currents and eddies, may have been arrested 

 and accumulated in particular places ; they may there have 

 undergone those" transformations and chemical changes, 

 whicii various vegetable substances similarly situate have 

 been proved to suffer in other parts of the world. An acci- 

 dental fire, such as is known frequently to occur in the bowels 

 of the Earth, may then have operated in separating and driv- 

 ing oft the newly formed bitumen more or less combined 

 with siliceous and argillaceous earths, which forcing its way 

 through the surface, and afterward becoming inspissated by 

 exposure tq the air, may have occasioned such scenes as J 

 have ventured to describe. The only other country accu- 

 Similar coun- vate ty resembling this part of Trinidad of which I recollect 

 tryinTatary. to have read, is that which borders on the gulf of Taman 

 in Crim Tartary : from the representation of travellers, 

 springs of naphtha 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 improbable, that the River 

 Don and Sea of Azof may have acted the same part in pro- 

 ducing these appearances in the one case, as the Orinoco and 

 gulf 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 al- 

 luvial formation, and the land all along this coast is daily 

 receiving aconsiderable 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 re- 

 presentation ofCapt. Mallet, and which has been frequently 

 corroborated, a fluid bitumen oozes up and rises to. the sur- 



* Vide Universal Mag for Feb. 1808, Mrs. Gttfhrie's Tour in the 

 Tauride, or Voyages de Pallas. 



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