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