Part 18

THE LAKE ON THE MOUNTAIN.

MR. DRUMMOND THINKS HE HAS FOUND WHERE ITS WATERS COME FROM.

On the north side of Lake Ontario, southwest of the Canadian city of Kingston, is a lake situated on a height of land one side of which forms a cliff. It is just south of the arm of Lake Ontario known as Quinte Bay and it stands 180 feet above the bay. There is no opportunity for surface waters to flow into this little lake and no one has the slightest idea whence it derives its waters, which are clear and fresh. The lake is about one and a half miles long with a width of about three-quarters of a mile.

Mr. A. T. Drummond recently wrote a letter to Nature, in which he said he believed he had solved the mystery of the invisible inflow, which cannot possibly be attributed to springs from any higher ground in the neighborhood. In his opinion the source of the lake is to be found in the Trenton limestone area some twenty-five or thirty miles to the northeast. There is a steady rise in these rocks to the north and their dip is favorable to sending the water that sinks through the soil to them southward to the region of Lake Ontario. Fifty miles away the rocks have a height of 400 feet above the lake.

In order to ascertain the bearing of these rocks upon the origin of the inflow, Mr. Drummond last summer made a series of soundings in the little lake. The largest part of the lake is shallow, but along its southern edge he found a great rent in the bottom nearly a mile long and a third of a mile wide. In this rent the depths varied from seventy-five to 100 feet. He says the rent is probably due to a wide fault or breakage in the Trenton limestone, and he believes that the same forces that gave rise to this fault may account for a subterranean connection with the higher ground many miles to the north through which the water finds its way into the little lake that overlooks Ontario. Mr. Drummond’s theory is the most plausible that has yet been suggested to account for the source from which this mysterious lake receives its waters.

A BOILING LAKE.

There is a lake of boiling water in the Island of Dominica, lying in the mountains behind Roseau, and in the valleys surrounding it are many solfataras, or volcanic sulphur vents. In fact, the boiling lake is little better than a crater filled with scalding water, constantly fed by mountain streams, and through which the pent-up gases find vent and are ejected. The temperature of the water on the margins of the lake ranges from 180° to 190° Fahrenheit; in the middle, exactly over the gas vents, it is believed to be about 300°. Where this active action takes place the water is said to rise two, three, or even four feet above the general surface level of the lake, the cone often dividing so that the orifices through which the gas escapes are legion in number. This violent disturbance over the gas jets causes a violent action over the whole surface of the lake, and, though the cones appear to be special vents, the sulphurous vapors rise with equal density over its entire surface. Contrary to what one would naturally suppose, there seems to be in no case violent action of the escaping gases, such as explosions or detonations. The water is of dark gray color, and having been boiled over and over for thousands of years, has become thick and slimy with sulphur. As the inlets to the lake are rapidly closing, it is believed that it will soon assume the character of a geyser or sulphurous crater.--St. Louis Republic.

AN UNCANNY LAKE.

There is in Missouri a lake, perched on the top of a mountain, its surface from 50 to 100 feet below the level of the earth surrounding it, fed by no surface streams, untouched by the wind, dead as the sea of Sodom. There is no point of equal altitude from which water could flow within hundreds of miles, and yet it has a periodical rise of 30 feet or over, which is in no way affected by the atmospheric conditions in the country adjacent. It may rain for weeks in Webster County, and the return of fair weather will find Devil’s Lake at its lowest point, while it may reach its highest point during a protracted drouth.--St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

CURIOUS LAKE IN THE WEST INDIES.

CHICAGO, Oct. 14.--Editor of the Herald:--In your very interesting “Missing Links” of to-day you mention the great sunken lake in the Cascade Mountains as the most deeply sunken lake in the world. This reminded me of a lake similar to this which I visited while traveling in the West Indies in 1891. This lake is situated in the island of St. Vincent on the highest peak of the Souffrière range of mountains, 4,500 feet above the level of the sea.

It is one mile and a half down to the surface of the water and like the Cascade Lake the depth of the water is unknown.

Soundings were taken many years ago by Lieutenant Smith, of the United States navy, but with no result. The lake is almost a complete circle and is about three or four miles in circumference.

The color of the water is light olive, but there are times when it changes to an intense yellow and is saturated with sulphur. It was in the latter state that I saw it in 1891, and so thick was the sulphur that two of our party who ventured to bathe came out with a thin coating of sulphur on many parts of their body and emitting so strong an odor that we were forced to quarantine them for some hours.

ED FITZGERALD.

LOFTY LAKES OF THE WORLD.

The most loftily situated lakes are found among the Himalaya Mountains in Thibet. Their altitudes do not, however, seem to have been accurately gauged, for different authorities give widely different figures regarding them. According to some, Lake Manasurovara, one of the sacred lakes of Thibet, is between 19,000 and 20,000 feet above the level of the sea, and if this is so it is undoubtedly the loftiest lake in the world. Two other Thibetan lakes, those of Cholamoo and Surakol, are stated to be 17,000 and 15,400 feet in altitude respectively. For a long time it was supposed that Lake Titicaca, in South America, was the loftiest in the world. It covers about 4,500 square miles, and is 924 feet above the sea. In spite of inexactitude with regard to the measurements of the elevation of the Thibetan lakes, they are, no doubt, considerably higher than this and any others.--New York Telegram.

THE WATER STILL RISES.

QUEER PRANKS OF A LAKE AS AN EFFECT OF AN EARTHQUAKE SHOCK.

NEW YORK, September 18.--To-day’s Herald has these cable dispatches:

“SAN SALVADOR, VIA GALVESTON, TEX., September 12, 1891.--The waters in Llapango Cojutepeque, or Illabasco Lake, as it is variously known, keep on rising. The workmen sent by the government to open an outlet to the ocean are still hard at work.

“The shocks continue to be felt at irregular intervals. The earthquake of September 8 was experienced all over the country. The material losses are estimated at $500,000, although this seems a low figure.

“News was received here this morning from Guatemala City that ex-vice-President Dr. Rafeel Aola had been accidentally shot and killed while attempting to separate two of his friends who were engaged in a quarrel.”

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In the extreme eastern edge of Arizona there is a great shallow salt lake in a bowl-like depression, the sink itself being some hundreds of feet deep and three miles across. The basin, all the portion of it not taken up by the lake, is dazzling white with millions upon millions of salt crystals. In the center of the lake rises what appears to be a cone-shaped volcanic peak. Should you take the trouble to ford the lake you will find a miniature lake in the middle of the peak clear as crystal.

THE DEEPEST LAKE KNOWN.

By far the deepest lake in the world is Lake Baikal, in Siberia, which is in every way comparable to the great Canadian lakes as regards size; for, while its area of over 9,000 square miles makes it about equal to Lake Erie in superficial extent, its enormous depth of between 4,000 and 4,500 feet makes the volume of its waters almost equal to that of Lake Superior. Although its surface is 1,350 feet above the sea level, its bottom is nearly 3,000 feet below it. The Caspian Lake, or Sea, as it is usually called, has a depth in its southern basin of over 3,000 feet. Lake Maggiore is 2,800 feet deep, Lake Como nearly 2,000 feet, and Lagodi-Garda, another Italian lake, has a depth in certain places of 1,900 feet. Lake Constance is over 1,000 feet deep, and Huron and Michigan reach depths of 900 and 1,000 feet.

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