MYSTERY LAKE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 70, 4 January 1936, Page 6

MYSTERY LAKE.

HARNESSING A WORLD WONDER A new chapter is about to be written in the strange history of Lake Titicaca, a miniature inland sea lying nearly 13,000 feet up in the air, on the boundaries of Bolivia and Peru, between the main range of the Andes and the Cordillera Real. One of the wonders of the world, it receives two rivers and issues by way of a third. It covers 3500 square miles, is 120 miles long, averages from 30 to 40 miles wide, and, with an average depth of about 350 feet, has depths exceeding 900 feet. Its volume is computed at 30 million cubic feet of water. Little towns surround it, linked by busy steamers, and by some mystery it has a native population of fishes, living at a greater height than any other of their kind. This great body of water is now to be turned to new account; it is to be harnessed to generate a gigantic electric plant for driving the railways of Bolivia and furnishing power for her mines and industrial works. Probably the work will depend largely on natives, for at so great a height a European cannot breathe with ease, owing to insufficiency of oxygen in the iarified air. It is a mystery to Europeans how men can do heavy labour at these high altitudes. The lake is associated with the romance of the rise of the great Inca empire. In the waters is an island, sharing the name of the lake; an island with a temple of wonderful primitive carving on huge stones. Here, the natives and their historians believe, originated the Inca dynasty. Long before .America was reached by Columbus there was an advanced civilisation here, with temples to the sun and moon. The island was the most sacred spot in the empire. Uniting the practical to the sacred, in a cave on the island the corn grown at lower heights was brought up and stored. There after priestly blessing it was given out at seed-time for sowing; the harvests depended on an unfailing supply from the cave on the island in the lake. Here was the sanctuary of the empire, here the granary, and here the palace of that Inca dynasty whose wonders of civilisation and marvellous art remain one of the mysteries of I America’s history.