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Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The
Wonderland of Trinidad
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Wonderland of Trinidad

Creator: Barber Asphalt Paving Co.

Release date: December 13, 2019 [eBook #60911]

Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE

WONDERLAND OF TRINIDAD ***
 The Wonderland
of Trinidad

ISSUED BY
THE BARBER ASPHALT COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA, PA.

CHICAGO PITTSBURGH SAN FRANCISCO

NEW YORK KANSAS CITY ST. LOUIS
 2

Trinidad Asphalt Lake, showing the loop of the narrow gauge railroad

3
In the name “Trinidad” is embodied all the romance and beauty and
wonder of a tropical island. In the native language it is called Iere,
“the land of the humming bird.” Quite in accordance with the
luxurious abundance of life and color is the asphalt lake, the marvel
of centuries. Its causation astonishing, its features gigantic, it lies in
the heart of a romantic land—a subject of speculation among
scientists, but a tropical enchantment to those of more fanciful mind.

The Island of Trinidad lies about 700 miles north of the Equator and
2000 miles from New York. Its area of 1755 square miles is less than
that of the State of Delaware. It belongs to Great Britain and is
separated from its nearest neighbor, Venezuela, by the wonderful
Gulf of Paria and its narrow straits or bocas which connect the gulf
with the ocean.

A private mansion, Port of Spain, B. W. I.

This majestic gateway has seen the coming and going of many
famous mariners. Through it Columbus sailed north on his third 4
voyage in midsummer of the year 1498. Sir Walter Raleigh and
many buccaneers swept through the bocas in the days when English
seamen performed deeds of valor against the Spaniards, and any
galleon was their lawful prey. Here, too, cruised Nelson with his great
English fleet, hunting for the French warships on that half world
chase that ended at Trafalgar. To-day important trade centers in
Trinidad, and the harbor of Port of Spain, the only city of size, is busy
with the arrival and departure of steamships bearing to Europe and
America the tropical riches of the Island.

A country road just outside Port of Spain

In Trinidad the thermometer records 85 degrees almost every day

and never changes more than twenty degrees. The only difference
between one season of the year and another, is that for a few
months it rains. Even in the rainy season, however, and nearly every
day, there is an abundance of bright sunshine. There are fine shops,
large warehouses filled with chocolate beans, sugar and other 5
tropical products; and one can ride on trolley cars made in
Philadelphia. The most popular hotel faces the great Savannah, a
wide stretch of lawn bordered by trees. There are beautiful drives to
the Reservoir; up the mountains to Maracas Waterfall with vista of
the Caribbean a thousand feet below; through avenues of giant
bamboos arching over the roadway, and through miles of plantations
of cacao.

Queen’s Park Hotel, the most popular in Port of Spain, facing the
great Savannah
A street in Port of Spain, where one can ride up town on a trolley car
built in Philadelphia

Railway lines run east from Port of Spain, and south for thirty-five
miles, down the coast of the Gulf of Paria, to Prince’s Town and 6
San Fernando, through sections crowded with East Indian
coolies. From San Fernando, a little steamer leaves daily for trips
along the coast. The land-locked waters of the Gulf are usually calm
and the mountains of Venezuela are seen miles away in an exquisite
blue haze. The steamer skirts along a shore bordered by mangrove
swamps, to Brighton, and there it stops at the long pier of The
Trinidad Lake Asphalt Operating Company, Ltd.

Brighton is an active little industrial community, close upon the lake,

and the traveler finds himself in the midst of the asphalt industry.
Overhead the cable is singing away as it carries along the myriad of
great buckets filled with asphalt. Dozens of pretty buildings are the
homes of the Company’s employees. White paint and screens and
cleanliness are everywhere.

The asphalt refinery is at the hilltop, on the border of the lake, which
has been described by some as an inferno, a place of heat and
vapors. In reality it is a great level area of about 100 acres, with a
surface of a dull blue-gray color, with here and there stray pools of
water from the showers.
 The great Savannah, with its wide, tree-bordered lawn, rich in
tropical beauty

Model of Trinidad Asphalt Lake, Brighton, Trinidad, British West Indies

 At the lower right-hand corner of the photograph of the
model will be found the village of La Brea, while just above
at the edge of the lake is the village of “New Jersey,”
where the laborers and their families live. The asphalt
refinery and barreling plant are to the left of the village.
The office, bungalows of the employees, hotel and
clubhouse are located between the refinery and the
loading pier. At the extreme left-hand corner of the
photograph is the jetty and end of aerial tramway, where
vessels dock to be loaded with asphalt.

Part of the Company’s “Quarters” for employees at Trinidad Asphalt

Lake

You may walk where you please on the asphalt. It is solid enough to
bear your weight. But if you stand in one place you will slowly sink in.
The surface bears some resemblance to an asphalt street on a very
hot day, though much of the time a fresh breeze blows.
A gang of workmen on the lake, digging and loading asphalt.
Observe the method of carrying to cars

9
 Another view of the asphalt lake showing workmen at rest during
lunch period

A narrow gauge railroad runs from the refinery out upon and halfway
across the lake. Then it swings back in a great loop to the shore.
Little cars run on the tracks drawn by a wire cable guided by rollers
between the rails. Here and there, near the line, you may see
workmen digging asphalt and loading trains of cars. When these are
filled they are drawn around the loop to the refinery; or to the pier
where asphalt in its crude form is shipped to the United States and to
nearly every other civilized country in the world.

The loaded cars are halted under a conveyor cable. Very rapidly the
hooks which swing from the cable are thrown into place, and the big
bucket is lifted from the truck and goes off down the hill. The carriers
are clamped to the moving cable, all the buckets moving along at the
same rate of speed. The weight of those going down helps to pull the
empties back again, so that not very much power is needed to keep
the cable moving.

Most of the cars, however, are stopped at the refinery, which is at the
edge of the lake, close to the power house and the shops. 10
Refining Trinidad asphalt consists mainly of driving off twenty-
nine per cent. of contained water. The crude asphalt is dumped into
large tanks heated by coils of steam pipes. The asphalt softens and
boils, evaporating the water completely. The melted asphalt is drawn
into barrels, in which it is shipped away. This refined Trinidad Lake
Asphalt contains all of the constituents of the crude asphalt that are
valuable from the chemical or commercial viewpoint.
 Panoramic view of Trinidad Asphalt Lake. The lake occupies a bowl-
like depression, in area about 114 acres. It is bordered by low hills.
The surface is dotted with clumps of trees and bushes, and broken by
irregular pools of surface water. In the background to the left is part
of the asphalt refinery, which extends from the hilltop to the edge of
the lake

Digging the asphalt is a simple operation. A mattock is the only tool

required, and under its blows the asphalt breaks readily. The 11
negroes employed in digging are skilled in the work, and break
out lumps that would be far too heavy for an untrained laborer to
carry. An astonishingly small amount of the material is broken into
pieces. A laborer simply lifts one or two lumps, raises them up on his
head, walks a few yards, and drops them in the car. The crude
asphalt as broken out is brownish, usually quite wet with surface
water, and filled with cavities made by gas up to an inch or more in
diameter.

The gangs of barefooted workmen in a place number thirty, of whom

half a dozen do the digging on a space perhaps sixty feet long 12
and forty wide, and in the course of a day dig to a depth of
about three feet. That same spot the next morning may look a little
rough but will be approximately level with the level of the lake. The
hole fills up, and in the course of a week all traces of the digging are
obliterated, which does not mean necessarily that fresh asphalt has
come into the lake from below. On the contrary, the excavations are
filled by a slow settling or leveling of the surface asphalt. Near the
middle of the area the material is softer, and in a few places it may
be seen in small irregular patches oozing up from below, and of the
consistency of putty.

The Lake is solid asphalt, perhaps two hundred feet deep at its
lowest point. Borings show that in consistency the asphalt is
practically the same throughout. There is evidence that the mass
contained in the lake is in constant but very slow motion. The surface
is a series of folds, between which rain water gathers in the creases.
Sir Frederick Treves compared the surface of the asphalt to the skin
of a huge elephant, and the irregular creases to the folds in his hide.
Along the edges of the pools of water, grass and bushes find a
footing, forming green islands of no great area.

The railroad which carries the asphalt to the refinery is necessarily a

light affair, for the reason that it is frequently moved from place to
place, as mining work is shifted. It is remarkable, however, how the
asphalt supports the ties and rails, especially when it is remembered
that the loaded cars often passing in a continuous line over the rails,
must weigh no less than 1000 pounds each. A solid lake may seem a
misnomer, but no other phrase better describes the Trinidad deposit
or the somewhat similar but much larger Bermudez asphalt lake in
Venezuela.

13
Surface of the lake, a series of great folds, where rain water gathers
in the creases

Close to the Lake’s edge the asphalt is drier, and along the shore of
the lake here and there are “pitch cones,” like miniature volcanoes,
and composed of asphalt that does not flow, but which was evidently
once semi-liquid. Similar “pitch cones” are to be found here and there
about the neighborhood, and are in places along the edge of the Gulf
of Paria.

A quarter of a mile from shore a steamship lies at the end of the pier,
loading crude asphalt. Go out on the narrow boardwalk, climb up the
winding stairway, and you come on a platform forty feet above the
water. The conveyor cable is guided by pulleys around the end of the
pier. As each bucket comes along a clutch is thrown off, the bucket is
tipped and the asphalt falls down a chute into the hold of the ship.

14
Breaking the asphalt with a mattock. The porous condition of the
lumps can be seen

“Pitch cones” of hard asphalt at the edge of the lake

 15

A near view of the surface of the lake. Gas emerging through surface
water, as shown by ripples and bubbles
Uncovering land asphalt. The difference between lake and land
asphalts can be seen readily

16
The narrow boardwalk, forty feet above the water, and the conveyor
cable with loaded buckets of asphalt. Men throwing off the clutch.
The next step—Men releasing the pawl preparatory to emptying the
large bucket.
The bucket is tipped up and the asphalt goes tumbling through a hole
in the platform, down a chute into the hold of the ship.
The origin of asphalt has been a subject of much discussion in 17
the past, and recent developments in the region of the lake
enable one at last to make a definite statement on the subject. Strata
of clays and shales that extend from east to west in southern
Trinidad, carry asphaltic oil in liquid form. Many wells have been
drilled in recent years and quantities of this maltha won. The asphalt
lake fills a natural depression into which asphaltic petroleum from
one of these strata found its way ages ago.

A geologist might say that the origin of the deposit of asphalt is

recent, but in saying that he might mean that not more than a few
thousand years had gone since its occurrence. The asphaltic
petroleum came from the depths, after which such parts of the
substance as were light and gaseous volatilized, the heavy base
remaining.

For practical purposes the asphalt is a perfect commodity for the uses
to which it is applied. The amount in the lake has not been calculated
with any certainty, but there is unquestionably enough to supply the
needs of the whole world for a very long time.

The first modern Trinidad Lake asphalt pavement was laid in the
United States. Since then it has been used on show streets of the
world, including Fifth Avenue, New York; Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, D. C.; Michigan Avenue Boulevard, Chicago; Broad
Street, Philadelphia; Victoria-Thames Embankment, London, England,
and countless other streets in the United States, South America,
Australia, Egypt, India and Japan. One very frequently now sees
motor trucks hauling mixtures of this black material. Almost
everybody has seen it dumped smoking hot on the street, paused to
watch the men raking it out carefully and the rollers compressing it
into a smooth pavement. As laid it contains 10% of asphalt and the
rest is sand and stone-dust.

18
 Upper Illustration—Wells, derricks, and partial view of Oil Refinery
Lower Illustration—A well in operation, with oil running into “sump”
shown in foreground

Nevertheless, the asphalt has such cementitious qualities that it 19

solidifies the materials into a sheet as hard as rock.

After asphalt was first used for street paving, other uses were
discovered for it. For example, it is now used in the manufacture of
asphalt shingles and roll roofings. Asphalt is waterproof and at the
same time so tough and durable that it is peculiarly suited for that
purpose. These qualities combined with its low price have no doubt
been mainly responsible for its phenomenal success and popularity
among builders and home owners.

The earlier forms of roll roofing were supplemented very soon by

more elaborate styles coated with granulated slate in different colors
and cut into shingles in a wide variety of sizes and patterns.

Hundreds of tons of native lake asphalt are used annually in the

construction of built-up roofs and asphalt mastic floors for large office
buildings and industrial plants. A large amount of asphalt is also used
in the waterproofing of large engineering projects, such as tunnels,
bridge structures, dams and reservoirs.
 A grove of cocoanut trees and tropical undergrowth at edge of
Trinidad Asphalt Lake

Duplicate copies of this Booklet may be obtained free of 20

charge from The Barber Asphalt Company, Philadelphia, Pa.

Cable Address—
Baspaco, Philadelphia

ELEVENTH EDITION
3-27

50M 3-27
Lasher Printing Company
Philadelphia, U. S. A.
 Transcriber’s Notes
Silently corrected a few typos.
Retained publication information from the printed edition: this
eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.