CHAPTER XV. 



TRINIDAD OIL FIELDS. 



The ddea that Petroleum Oil existed in Trinidad 

 is by no means of recent date, because we find it 

 alluded to as far back as the beginning of the last cen- 

 tury, in fact within a year or so after Trinidad be- 

 came a British colony, and even before, for Sir Walter 

 Baleigh, long before that time, must have had some 

 idea that La Brea Pitch had something to do with 

 petroleum. Dr. Anderson, alluded to in the chapter 

 on La Brea, also mentions it, and some years after 

 wards Lord Dundonald sank a well to obtain 

 it, and did, but not in paying quantities. I have 

 seen this place and have also referred to it in the 

 chapter on La Brea. Joseph mentions that he saw 

 running in rills on the lake itself. Kingsley in his 

 " At Last " also mentions it, and as this account 

 seems to be overlooked I here reproduce it : — 



" We hurried along the trace, which now sloped 

 rapidly down hill. Suddenly, a loathsome smell de- 

 filed the air. Was there a gas house in the wilder- 

 ness ? or had the pales of Paradise been just smeared 

 with bad coal tar ? Not exactly ; but across the path 

 crept, festering in the sun, a black runnel of petro- 

 leum and water ; and twenty yards to our left stood 

 under a fast crumbling trunk, what was a year or 



