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VII.—On the Pitch Lake of Trinidad 1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

S. F. Peckham
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Extract

After a recent visit to Trinidad I am led to add my testimony to that of the numerous observers, who for more than a hundred years have written concerning this remarkable phenomenon.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 2 , Issue 9 , September 1895 , pp. 416 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1895

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Footnotes

1

From the Amer. Journ. Sci.—Third Series, vol. L, No. 295, July 1895.

References

page 416 note 2 Philosophical Transactions, lxxix, 65, 1789.Google Scholar

page 416 note 3 Transactions of the Geological Society of London, i, 63, 1811.Google Scholar

page 417 note 1 Journal of the Franklin Institute, 1833, xv, 337. New Edinburgh Philos. Magazine.Google Scholar

page 420 note 1 American Journal of Science, part ii, vol. xx, p. 153, 1855.Google Scholar

page 420 note 2 Report on the Geology of Trinidad, by order of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, London, 1860.Google Scholar

page 420 note 3 Loc. cit., p. 70.Google Scholar

page 420 note 4 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1892, vol. xlviii, pp. 519–536.Google Scholar Ibid., vol. xxii, 571; ibid., vol. xxiv, p. 11; ibid., vol. xxvi, p. 413; ibid.., vol. xlviii, p. 221.

The “Naparima rocks” consist of an anticlical that, abutting in a bluff near San Fernando, on the Gulf of Paria, extends across the island almost to the east coast. They also appear on the mainland of Venezuela near the Bay of Cumana. The lowest strata are Cretaceous, and are called, together with the Eocene above them, the “Older Parian.” The “Newer Parian” above is Miocene, and contains lignites and bitumen. Here orbitoides and nummulites are found in a mass of rock projecting into the Gulf of Paria, supposed to be Miocene. In the Western Hemisphere orbitoides are supposed to characterize the Eocene. In the Eastern Hemisphere nummulites are characteristic of the same formation. The deposit that here contains them both lies between other Miocene deposits.

page 421 note 1 Proc. Sci. Assoc. Trinidad, December 1877, p. 103.Google Scholar

page 422 note 1 Bischoff, Chem. and Phys. Geol. (Cav. Soc. Ed.), vol. i, pp. 288, 290, 291.Google Scholar

page 422 note 2 “A Christmas in the West Indies.” London, 1879.

page 422 note 3 Consular Reports, No. 145, Oct. 1892.

page 422 note 4 Reports of the operation of the Engineer Department of the District of Columbia, for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1892. Washington, 1893.

page 424 note 1 I was told by those who witnessed the digging of this cargo, that apparently no care was exercised in its selection. One gentleman declared that it was the dirtiest cargo of pitch ever sent from the island.