226 



TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



time early in the beginning of the last century, pro- 

 bably about 1800. He was evidently a highly accom- 

 plished scientific man because he uses, in his descrip- 

 tion of the lake, scientific names for very common- 

 place things. Now as neither I, nor the majority of 

 my readers, possess this class of education, I take the 

 liberty of changing his terms into plain words ; but 

 in order to indicate them I have italicised them. I 

 have been told that when a quotation is given it 

 ought to be used verbatim. Well, perhaps so ! but 

 as this book has no pretensions to be historical in the 

 strict sense, and is written by a plain man for plain 

 people I have here and there taken the liberty of 

 changing words and phrases but not their meaning 

 or application ; so therefore Dr. Anderson's terms 

 are given in simpler words. His description is as 

 follows : — 



" A most remarkable production of nature in 

 the island of Trinidad, is a bituminous lake, or rather 

 plain known by the name of Tar Lake ; by the French 

 called La Brea, from the resemblance to, and answer- 

 ing the intention of, shdp-pitch, 9 7 /'Its situa- 

 tion is similar to a savannah, and, like them it is not 

 seen till treading upon its verge. Its colour and 

 even surface presents at first the aspect of a lake of 

 water ; it is possible it got the appellation of lake 

 when seen in the hot and dry weather, at which time 

 its surface to the depth of an inch is liquid ; and then 

 from its cohesive quality it cannot be walked upon." 



All this is changed ; there is only one place in the 

 centre where the substance is liquid, in every other 



