"Lo, gleaming blue o'er fair Sumatra's skies, MICKLE." So far the learned translator and commentator upon the NATURE OF THINGS: who has travelled so widely and explained himself so fully, that it only remains for us to offer a few other singular examples, in addition to those he has so curiously selected. 2. Wigan Well, in Lancashire. By Thomas Shirley, Esq. EDITOR. ABOUT a mile from Wigan in Lancashire is a spring, the water of which is supposed to burn like oil. It is true that when we came to the spring, and applied a lighted candle to the surface of the water, there was suddenly a large flame produced, which burned vigorously. Having taken up a dishful of water at the flaming place, and held the lighted candle to it, the flame went out. Yet I observed that the water at the burning place boiled and rose up like water in a pot upon the fire, though my hand put into it felt no warmth. This boiling I conceived to proceed from the eruption of some bitumous or sulphurous fumes; considering this place was not above 30 or 40 yards distant from the mouth of a coal-pit there. And indeed Wigan, Ashton, and the whole country for many miles compass, is underlaid with coal. Then applying my hand to the surface of the burning place of the water, I found a strong breath like a wind bear against my hand. Upon making a dam, and hindering the recourse of fresh water to the burning place, I caused that which was already there to be drained away, and then applying the burning candle to the surface of the dry earth at the same point, where the water before burned, the fumes took fire and burned very bright and vigorous. The cone of the flame ascended a foot and a half from the surface of the earth. The basis of it was of * See Good's Translation of Lucretius, Vol. II. p. 552. / the compass of a man's hat about the brim. I then caused a bucket full of water to be poured on the fire, by which it was presently quenched. I did not perceive the flame to be discoloured like that of sulphurous bodies, nor to have any manifest smell with it. The fumes when they broke out of the earth and pressed against my hand, were not to my best remembrance at all hot *. Phil. Trans. Abr. 1667. 3. Broseley Spring in Shropshire. By Mr. Richard Hopton. THE famous boiling well at Broseley, near Wenlock, in the county of Salop, was discovered about June, 1711. It was first announced by a terrible noise in the night, about two nights after a remarkable day of thunder: the noise awaked several people in their beds, that lived hard by; who coming to a boggy place under a little hill, about 200 yards from the river Severn, perceived a surprising rumbling and shaking in the earth, and a little boiling up of water through the grass. They took a spade, and digging up some part of the earth, immediately the water flew up a great height, and a candle that was in their hand set it on fire. To prevent the spring being destroyed, an iron cistern is placed about it, with a cover to be locked, and a hole in the middle, through which the water may be viewed. If a lighted candle, or any thing of fire be put to this hole, the water immediately takes fire, and burns like spirit of wine, or brandy, and continues so long as the air is kept from it; but by taking up the cover of the cistern, it quickly goes out. The heat of this fire much exceeds the heat of any fire I ever saw, and seems to have more than ordinary fierceness in it †. Phil. Trans. Abr. 1712. The fumes here mentioned were inflammable air or hydrogen gas, of which the rapid ascent through the water gave it the appearance of boiling. Phil. Trans. Abr. 1667. This well may therefore be regarded as another instance of those we have adverted to in Section V, of the present chapter, under the name of Bubbling Springs, or springs that from the quantity of elastic gas with which the water is combined, have the appearance of boiling without any sensible increase of heat. EDITOR. + The apparent boiling and ascent of the water of this spring, are still more obviously the result of hydrogen gas or inflammable air, as it is commonly called, 4. Bituminous Fountain at Cracow, with a Notice of various other inflammable Springs. By Dr. Tancred Robinson, WHEN I delivered my thoughts concerning boiling fountains, 'their varieties and causes, I had not then time enough to mention the burning ones, except that not only Wigan in Lancashire, with which those burning fountains, near Grenoble in Dauphine, near Cibinium or Hermanstadt in Transylvania; near Chermay, a village in Switzerland, in the Canton of Friburgh; and that not far from Cracovia in Poland, do agree in many particulars; as in being actually cold, yet inflammable and taking fire at a distance, on the application of any light body; which the boiling springs near Peroul will not do; this ought to be understood of them in their sources, because when removed from thence, neither the waters, nor their earths will produce any such phænomena, as boiling or flaming. It is related of the burning fountain in the palatinate of Cracow, that on evaporating the water, a dark or pitch-like substance may be extracted, which cures the most inveterate ulcers in a very short time; and that the mud itself is very powerful against rheumatic and gouty pains, palsies, scabs, &c. The inhabitants of an adjacent village, drinking much of the spring, do generally live to 100 or 150 years, which is attributed to the sanative virtue of the water t. Phil. Trans. 1685. than in the preceding instance of Wigan-Well. And to the reader a little acquainted with the prodigious quantities of this material that are frequently forming in cavities below the surface of the earth, it is only necessary for him to revert to the extensive and tremendous mischief produced by it on a late occasion at Felling Colliery, as already related in chapter xxxviii. section viii. of the present work. EDITOR. * See Section v. 1. of the present chapter. + We have already noticed in a preceding extract from Mr. Good's Translation of Lucretius, see p. 146, a more perfect pitch or bitumen obtained from a spring at Amiano, in the Ligurian Republic, and which the inhabitants of the country have been ingenious enough to employ for the purpose of lighting their towns and cities. And the ensuing article will be found to contain a far more extensive instance of a similar secretion, and capable perhaps of being converted to still more useful purposes, and upon a much larger scale. EDITOR. 5. Pitch Lake of the Island of Trinidad. By Nicholas Nugent, M.D. BEING desirous to visit the celebrated lake of pitch previously to my departure from the Island of Trinidad, I embarked with that intention in the month of October, 1807, in a small vessel at Port Spain. After a pleasant sail of about thirty miles down the Gulf of Paria, we arrived at the point la Braye, so called by the French from its characteristic feature. It is a considerable headland, about eighty feet above the level of the sea, and perhaps two miles long and two broad. We landed on the southern side of the point, at the plantation of Mr. Vessigny: as the boat drew near the shore, I was struck with the appearance of a rocky bluff or small promontory of a reddish-brown colour, very different from the pitch which I had expected to find on the whole shore. Upon examining this spot, I found it composed of a substance corresponding to the porcelain jasper of mineralogists, generally of a red colour where it had been exposed to the weather, but of light slate-blue in the interior; it is a very hard stone with a conchoidal fracture, some degree of lustre, and is perfectly opake even at the edges; in some places, from the action of the air, it was of a reddish, or yellowish-brown, and an earthy appearance. I wished to have devoted more time to the investigation of what in the language of the Wernerian school is termed the geognostic relations of this spot, but my companions were anxious to proceed. We ascended the hill, which was entirely composed of this rock, to the plantation, where we procured a negro guide, who conducted us through a wood about three quarters of a mile. We now perceived a strong sulphureous and pitchy smell, like that of burning coal, and soon after had a view of the lake, which at first sight appeared to be an expanse of still water, frequently interrupted by clumps of dwarf trees or islets of rushes and shrubs: but on a nearer approach we found it to be in reality an extensive plain of mineral pitch, with frequent crevices and chasms filled with water. The singularity of the scene was altogether so great, that it was some time before I could recover from my surprize so as to investigate it minutely. The surface of the lake is of the colour of ashes, and at this season was not polished or smooth so as to be slippery; the hardness or consistence was such as to bear any weight; and it was not adhesive, though it partially received the impression of the foot; it bore us without any tremulous motion whatever, and several head of cattle were browsing on it in perfect security. In the dry season, however, the surface is much more yielding, and must be in a state approaching to fluidity, as is shown by pieces of recent wood and other substances being enveloped in it. Even large branches of trees which were a foot above the level, had in some way become enveloped in the bituminous matter. The interstices or chasms are very numerous, ramifying and joining in every direction, and in the wet season, being filled with water, present the only obstacle to walking over the surface: these cavities are generally deep in proportion to their width, some being only a few inches in depth, others several feet, and many almost unfathomable: the water in them is good, and uncontaminated by the pitch; the people of the neighbourhood derive their supply from this source, and refresh themselves by bathing in it; fish are caught in it, and particularly a very good species of mullet. The arrangement of the chasms is very singular: the sides, which of course are formed of the pitch, are invariably shelving from the surface, so as nearly to meet at the bottom, but then they bulge out towards each other with a considerable degree of convexity. This may be supposed to arise from the tendency in the pitch slowly to coalesce, whenever softened by the intensity of the sun's rays. These crevices are knowu occasionally to close up entirely, and we saw many marks or seams from this cause. How these crevices originate it may not be so easy to explain. One of our party suggested that the whole mass of pitch might be supported by the water which made its way through accidental rents; but in the solid state it is of greater specific gravity than water, for several bits thrown into one of the pools immediately sank. The lake (I call it so, because I think the common name appropriate enough) contains many islets covered with long grass and shrubbs, which are the haunts of birds of the most exquisite plumage, as the pools are of snipe and plover. Alligators are also said to abound here; but it was not our lot to encounter any of * Pieces of asphaltum are, I believe, frequently found floating on the Dead Sea in Palestine; but this arises probably from the extraordinary specific gravity of the waters of that lake, which Dr. Marcet found to be 1.211. Mr. Hatchett states the specific gravity of ordinary asphaltum to vary from 1023 to 1·165, but in two varieties of that of Trinidad it was as great as 1336 and 1.774. |