A VANISHING LAKE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 44, 16 November 1925, Page 10

A VANISHING LAKE

An extraordinary natural, phenomenon took place near zVlatri, a. little town between Rome and Naples in what is called the Ciociaria district. The lake of Canterno began to ary up rapidly, as it docs every ten years or so. The water disappears visibly and quickly through a kind of whirlpool or crater near the middle of the lake. The amazing features about this strange drying up of Canterno are that the water flows away regularly everv ten or eleven years, that nobodv has been able to discover where it goes, and, stranger still, after a certain time, running from one month to six, the water returns. The return of the water, which is the most puzzling feature of the affair, begins slowly, it appears, but after a day or two it comes back quite rapidlv. It used to be believed that the lake filled itself up again with rain water, but observations taken on the spot during the last two recurrences of the event exclude this explanation, as the return of the water is too rapid and is even visible to the eye.

It is related that on one of the last occasions of the repetition of the phenomenon, the Mavor Alatri .ordered that the waters of the lake should he coloured, so that if it appeared in any othpr place the route of the flow might be discovered. Nothing came of this soniewhat ingenious attempt to discover the explanation of the mystery. As the lake dries up a. number of eels and fish of different kinds are taken from the bottom by the people of the neighbourhood.