OUR LAKES AND THEIR USES. 151 
Fifty or sixty years ago, the land of a number of settlers was 
boundaries, and obtained about ten times as much land as 
originally gran 
It is a curious thing where the fish come from ; I have seen the 
place completely dry, and after a while when it again contained 
water, excellent fishing could be obtained there ; and again the 
lake would be covered with ducks and black swans. 
Mr. H. C. Russet said: I am very glad that Mr. —_ has 
taken such trouble to put before us his views about 
To me the lake has seemed a valuable index of the character of the 
climate, and one of the best means of determining the evaporation 
from a large quantity of water. About 1865-67, the udaient 
te) 
for the triangulation of the Colony, and careful measures of the 
height of the water were then taken, but this unfortunately was not 
kept up. As far as I can ascertain, the lake was at its highest 
between 1870-71, when it was 12 feet higher than in 1885, 
but the measurement for the intervening years cannot be filled up 
exactly. Assuming that the evaporation was pretty regular, the 
lake has lost by rer mie all the rainfall and nearly 1 foot per 
annum besides, or about 40 inches in all per annum. It is rather 
curious that the lake we hardly been effected by the recent hea 
is only about 30 inches. Mr. Mann has referred to what he calls 
the “ puddling” of the lake bottom by cattle, and it is a most 
interesting suggestion, but a number of wells have been sunk in 
the dried ‘part of the lake, and all of these were in gravel. 
When the lake was first discovered, the blacks said that it was 
covered with a forest, and all the water went out through holes in 
the bottom. It was the only way they could account for the dis- 
appearance of the water; but I think we cannot com e 
George with Lake Ti rknitz, That lake is upon a bed of limestone, 
and there are a number of deep holes in the bottom, through which 
it is supposed the water gets away. there were such holes in 
Lak rge at the bottom, one would expect the water to dis- 
appear gradu ually, but it appears that the water gets away very 
slowly indeed when the lake is full, and fast when it is low; 
whereas, if there were holes in the bottom, the water would get 
away fastest when there was plenty. 
Lake George does not seem to be: abies, except on occasions of 
¢ rainfall in its eto and leakage cannot occur to any 
pel extent through such h ard rocks as form its 
. T. WaireLecce said that he had examined so imens 
of water from Lake George, and found in the seshieentl a number 
of fresh water organisms, and a number of diatoms—eight or nine 
