fish are caught in it, and particularly a very good species of mullet. The arrangement of the chasms is very singular, the sides, which of course are formed of the pitch, are invariably shelving from the surface, so as nearly to meet at the bottom, but then they bulge out towards each other with a considerable degree of convexity. This may be supposed to arise from the tendency in the pitch slowly to coalesce, whenever softened by the intensity of the sun's rays. These crevices are known occasionally to close up entirely, and we saw many marks or seams from this cause. How these crevices originate it may not be so easy to explain. One of our party suggested that the whole mass of pitch might be supported by the water which made its way through accidental rents, but in the solid state it is of greater specific gravity than water, for several bits thrown into one of the pools immediately sunk. [1] The lake, (I call it so, because I think the common name appropriate enough) contains many islets covered with long grass and shrubs, which are the haunts of birds of the most exquisite plumage, as the pools are of snipe and plover. Alligators are also said to abound here, but it was not our lot to encounter any of these animals. It is not easy to state precisely the extent of this great collection of pitch; the line between it and the neighbouring soil is not always well defined, and indeed it appears to form the substratum of the surrounding tract of land. We may say, however, that it is bounded on the north and west sides by the sea, on the south by the rocky eminence of porcelain jasper, before
- ↑ Pieces of asphaltum are, I believe, frequently found floating on the Dead Sea in Palestine, but this arises probably from the extraordinary specific gravity of the waters of that lake which Dr. Marcet found to be 1.211. Mr. Hatchett states the specific gravity of ordinary asphalt umto vary from 1.023 to 1.165, but in two varieties of that of Trinidad it was as great as 1.336 and 1.744, which led Mr. Hatchett to form a conjecture which I shall afterwards notice.
