OCR Text |
Show A Lake or 1' it oil. : "Near where we live," said William Greig.of Trinidad, West Indies, "is a j pitclflake. It's.at La Brea. It covers about ninety acres, and it is soft enough to take the impression of your shoes as you walk over it, but take up a bit of it and strike it sharply and it breaks off i with a conchoidal fracture like a lump ! of anthracite. I don't know where it i comes from, but I do know that it's most awfully hot there. The sun ilts down like fun, and the black pitch absorbs all the heat. All down to the coast and under the sea and across in Venezuela there is a streak of this same formation. The Britisli government owns the lake, and a monopoly pays a royalty of not less than $,'0,000 a year. Chicago Tribune. |