Peckham — Bituminous Deposits of Cuba. 39 



fire and burned for one month. Coke could be seen all about it, 

 as at the other places. After a mere glance at this place, we 

 took a path which led around the western end of the range of 

 hills on the south side of the railroad, and after passing 

 through a country overgrown with high grass and rank trop- 

 ical vegetation, on what used to be a sugar plantation, we came 

 out at another- natural spring on a plantation near Santa Cata- 

 lina, as indicated upon the map. Here is a natural spring and 

 beside it a round hole ten feet in diameter, which was full of 

 water. The guide said that this hole was almost bottomless 

 and that the material had been used for repairing the build- 

 ings on the plantation half a mile distant. A fifteen-foot pole 

 was shoved down into the water. At ten feet it struck the 

 soft mass on the bottom. I shoved the pole still farther 

 downward until there was scarcely a foot of the pole left in 

 my hand, but no solid bottom was reached. This was the 

 largest artificial well I saw and helped to prove to me that the 

 evidences show this material to be well-nigh inexhaustible. 

 From here we made our way back to Hato I^uevo as quickly 

 as possible, and the next^norning went back to Cardenas. 



The country where these evidences occur is very peculiar. 

 The railroad from Recreo to Hato Xuevo passes through what 

 resembles a river bottom. On the left are low hills in scat- 

 tered clumps or standing quite alone. On the right the land 

 is level until we reach the turn in the railroad at Sabanilla. 

 Here a ridge commences and thence forward there are hills on 

 both sides of the railroad to Hato Nuevo and beyond. This 

 forms a plain between two ranges of hills. This plain is cov- 

 ered with the same kind of vegetation as that on the table- 

 land south of Cardenas. 



As the occurrences at Victoria are found on the north side 

 of these hills, I am inclined to believe there are other bitu- 

 minous hills between them and the coast. This embraces a ter- 

 ritory of many square miles in extent. 



I had very much wished to visit the celebrated naphtha well 

 at Motembo, but the Rio de la Palma was so high as to be 

 unfordable. I was told that the owner had done some drilling 

 there in a very crude way and that the product was singularly 

 pure. He used it like gasolene for heating and lighting his 

 house. I have no personal knowledge of this place. The 

 naphtha from this well has been gathered and distributed so 

 widely as to be well known. It is of the specific gravity of 

 ordinary benzine, and is absolutely colorless. A short descrip- 

 tion of the well and the locality surrounding it is to be found 

 in the Mineral Resources of the United States for 1898 and 

 '99. There is no question that this locality, as has been before 

 stated, lying midway between two areas producing petroleum 



