and attenuated be applicable to all the purposes of the petroleum of Zante, a well-known article of commerce in the Adriatic, or that of the district in Burmah, where 400,000 hogsheads are said to be collected annually. [1]
It is observed by Capt. Mallet in his Short Topographical Sketch of the Island, that “ near Cape la Brea (la Braye) a little to the south-west, is a gulph or vortex, which in stormy weather gushes out, raising the water five or six feet, and covers the surface for a considerable space with petroleum or tar; ” and he adds that “ on the east coast in the Bay of Mayaro, there is another gulph or vortex similar to the former, which in the months of March and June produces a detonation like thunder, having some flame with a thick black smoke, which vanishes away immediately; in about twenty-four hours afterwards, is found along the shore of the bay, a quantity of bitumen or pitch, about three or four inches thick, which is employed with success.” Capt. Mallet likewise quotes Gumilla, as stating in his Description of the Orinoco, that about seventy years ago, “ a spot of land on the western coast of this island, near half way between the capital and Indian village sunk suddenly, and was immediately replaced by a small lake of pitch to the great terror of the inhabitants. ”
I have had no opportunity of ascertaining personally whether these statements are accurate, though sufficiently probable from what is known to occur in other parts of the world; but I have been informed by several persons that the sea in the neighbourhood of La Braye is occasionally covered with a fluid bitumen, and in the south-eastern part of the island there is certainly a similar collection of this bitumen, though of less extent, and many small detached spots
- ↑ Vide Aikin's Dictionary of Chemistry, quoted from Captain Cox in the Asiatic Researches.
