might in all probability afford an inexhaustible supply of an essential article of naval stores, and being situated on the margin of the sea could be wrought and shipped with little inconvenience or expense. [1] It would however be great injustice to Sir Alexander Cochrane not to state explicitly that he has at various times, during his long and active command on the Leeward Island station, taken considerable pains to insure a proper and fair trial of this mineral production for the highly important uses of which it is generally believed to be capable. But whether it has arisen from certain perverse occurrences or from the prejudice of the mechanical superintendants of the Colonial Dock Yards, or really, as some have pretended, from an absolute unfitness of the substance in question ; the views of the gallant admiral have I believe been invariably thwarted, or his exertions rendered altogether fruitless. I was at Antigua in 1809 when a transport arrived laden with this pitch for the use of the dock-yard at English Harbour: it had evidently been hastily collected with little care or zeal from the beach, and was of course much contaminated with sand and other foreign substances. The best way would probably be to have it properly prepared on the spot, and brought to the state in which it may be serviceable, previously to its exportation. I have frequently seen it used to pay the bottoms of small vessels, for which it is particularly well adapted, as it preserves them from the numerous tribe of worms so abundant in tropical countries. [2] There seems indeed no reason why it should not when duly prepared
- ↑ This island contains also a great quantity of valuable timber, and several plants which yield excellent hemp.
- ↑ The different kinds of bitumen have always been found particularly obnoxious to the class of insects; there can be little doubt but that they formed ingredients in the Egyptian compost for embalming bodies, and the Arabians are said to avail themselves of them in preserving the trappings of their horses. Vide Jameson's Mineralogy.
