a hake of Bitumen in Trinidad. 69 
indurated, and adheres ftrongly to any thing it touches ; greafe 
is the only thing that will divert the hands of it. 
The foil in general, for fome diftance round La Bray, is 
cinders and burnt earths; and where not fo, it is a rtrong 
argillaceous foil ; the whole exceedingly fertile, which is always 
the cafe where there are any fulphureous particles in it. Every 
part of the country, to the diftance of thirty miles round, has 
every appearance of being formed by convulfions of nature 
from fubterraneous fires. In feveral parts of the woods are hot 
fprings ; fome I tried, with a well graduated thermometer of 
Fahrenheit, were 20° and 22 0 hotter than the atmofphere 
at the time of trial. From its pofition to them, this part of the. 
ifland has certainly experienced the effects of the volcanic erup- 
tions, which have heaped up thofe prodigious maffes of moun- 
tains that terminate the province of Paria on the north ; and 
no doubt there has been, and ftill probably is, a communication 
between them. One of thefe mountains oppofite to La Bray 
in Trinidad, about thirty miles diftant, has every appear- 
ance of a volcanic mountain : however, the volcanic efforts 
have been very weak here r as no trace of them extend above 
two miles from the fea in this part of the ifland, and the 
greater part of it has had its origin from a. very different caufe 
to that of volcanos ; but they have certainly laid the founda- 
tion of it, as is evident from the high ridge- of mountains 
which furrounds its windward fide to protect it from the 
depredations of the ocean, and is its only barrier againrt that 
over-powering element, and may properly be called the fkeleton 
of the ifland. 
From every examination I have made, I find the whole 
ifland formed of an argillaceous earth, either in its primitive 
fiate,. or under its different metamorphofes. The bafes of the 
mountains 
