LAKE SOLFATARA.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 203, 21 October 1896, Page 3

LAKE SOLFATARA.

This lake is in the Campagna of Rome, near Tivoli, anciently named Albulus. It has what are called throe floating islands, hut they are only apparently so., being composed of bunches of sedges P.nd bulrushes, glued together by the bitumen which swims on the lake,, and the sulphur with which it is impregnated, and iov ired with sand and dust blown iroiu the adjacent banks of the lake. Those islands are from 12 to 15 yards long, and the soil is strong enough to bear six persons, who, by a pole, mo move to different parts of the lak''. This lake has an outlet, wh ace its waters run. forming a whitish muddy stream, into the Teve.rone, the ancient Anio, emitting a vaprfur of a sulphurous smell as 11 i 03' flow. The ground near this rivulet, as well as on the hanks of the lake resound-3 with a hollow sound \vh 6 n a ho gallops over it. The water has nl-o u petrifying quality, covering .every substance. On throwing a bundle of slicks or shrubs into the la!. , they will jn a few days be covered with this stony crust ; and thjs petrifying quality is even stronger in ■thi- rivulet that runs from it than in tin lako itself, anil still increases till it falh into the Tevorono. These small white incrustations that cover tin pi bbles in the bottom of the lake ami rivulet, being somewhat like suj. .. plums, are exiled confections of Tivoli. Fish abound in the Teyeroye above and below Tivoli, till it receives jthe petrifying water; after which (dur ig tin remainder of its .course to (the fiber, there ara none.