Title: The Wonderland of Trinidad
Author: Anonymous
Language: English
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                             The Wonderland
                             _of_ Trinidad


    [Illustration: (uncaptioned)]

                               ISSUED BY
                       THE BARBER ASPHALT COMPANY
                           PHILADELPHIA, PA.

                 CHICAGO    PITTSBURGH    SAN FRANCISCO
                  NEW YORK    KANSAS CITY    ST. LOUIS

    [Illustration: Trinidad Asphalt Lake, showing the loop of the narrow
    gauge railroad]

    [Illustration: (Illustrated capital)]

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.

    [Illustration: 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 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.

    [Illustration: 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 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.

    [Illustration: Queen’s Park Hotel, the most popular in Port of
    Spain, facing the great Savannah]

    [Illustration: 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 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.

    [Illustration: The great Savannah, with its wide, tree-bordered
    lawn, rich in tropical beauty]

    [Illustration: 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.]

    [Illustration: 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.

    [Illustration: A gang of workmen on the lake, digging and loading
    asphalt.
    Observe the method of carrying to cars]

    [Illustration: 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. 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.

    [Illustration: 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 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 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.

    [Illustration: 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.

    [Illustration: Breaking the asphalt with a mattock. The porous
    condition of the lumps can be seen]

    [Illustration: “Pitch cones” of hard asphalt at the edge of the
    lake]

    [Illustration: A near view of the surface of the lake. Gas emerging
    through surface water, as shown by ripples and bubbles]

    [Illustration: Uncovering land asphalt. The difference between lake
    and land asphalts can be seen readily]

    [Illustration: The narrow boardwalk, forty feet above the water, and
    the conveyor cable with loaded buckets of asphalt. Men throwing off
    the clutch.]

    [Illustration: The next step—Men releasing the pawl preparatory to
    emptying the large bucket.]

    [Illustration: 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 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.

    [Illustration: 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
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.

    [Illustration: A grove of cocoanut trees and tropical undergrowth at
    edge of Trinidad Asphalt Lake]

  Duplicate copies of this Booklet may be obtained free of 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.

    [Illustration: Back cover]



                          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_.





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