419 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1687. 



«ide are very high, and 3 miles broad, running far into the Turkish country, 

 and afford nothing but horrid stony deserts, overgrown with trees. 



In the mountain called lavornik, near the lake, there are two holes, or ex- 

 ceedingly deep precipices, in which many thousand wild pigeons roost all the 

 winter ; entering in autumn, and coming out with the first of the spring; what 

 they live upon in these caverns is unknown, but perhaps the nitrous sand. On 

 the other hill called Slivenza, is a hole of an unknown depth, out of which 

 there often breathe noxious steams, attended with tempests of thunder and light- 

 ning and hail. This lake being every where surrounded with mountains, and 

 nowhere running over, nature has given it two visible channels or stony caverns, 

 by which the water runs under the mountain ; and a third concealed subterra- 

 neous passage, which without doubt communicates with the other two under 

 ground. This water having run half a German mile, comes out at the other side 

 of the mountain, in a desert place at a stony cave, and forms the river called by 

 the inhabitants Jesero, that is the lake. This river having run half a quarter 

 of a mile enters a wide stony cavern, running slowly under the hill for the space 

 of a good musket shot, then coming out again on the other side, after it has run 

 through a small plat, it enters a third cavern or grotto ; wherein having passed 

 50 paces, it runs no longer peaceably as before, but with great noise and roar- 

 ing falls down a -very steep channel of stone. 



About the feast of St. John Baptist, or St. James tide, and sometimes not till 

 August, the water runs away, and it is dry ; but it fills again most commonly in 

 October or November ; yet so as not to observe any certain time; for sometimes 

 it has been dry twice or thrice in a year, which makes the fishing very consi- 

 derable. Sometimes again, though but seldom, it has happened to be 3 or 4 

 years together full of water, and then is the best of the fishing. But it never 

 yet was observed that this lake was dry for a whole year together. 



In this lake there are many pits in the shape of basins or cauldrons, which 

 are not all of the same depth or breadth ; the breadth of them being from 20 

 to 6o cubits, more or less, and the depth from 8 to 20 cubits. In the bottom 

 of these pits are several holes, at which the water and fishes enter when the 

 lake ebbs away. In the months of June, July, and August, when this lake 

 begins to draw off, it grows quite dry in 25 days, if no great rains intervene. 

 And the pits are all emptied one after the other, in a certain and never-failing 

 order of time. 



When the lake begins to sink, which appears by a certain stone which they 

 observe, the inhabitants of the town called OberdorfF or Seedorf, give notice 

 thereof to all the neighbouring fishermen, that are appointed by the several 

 lords having right in this fishing. The people of this towi> have orders not 



