CHARACTERISTICS AND DISTRIBUTION OF LAKES 647 
and found a depth of 525 feet in the middle of the lake. This deep 
lake was thrown out by the 1902 eruption, and its place taken by 
a shallow pool of brown muddy water, while the walls were completely 
denuded of the vegetation which had previously covered them. For 
about two years the pool was troubled with gentle puffs of steam, or 
was thrown out and destroyed by strong eruptions, but now the crater 
is perfectly quiet, and the lake has regained much of its former size 
and depth. The water is a beautiful yellowish green colour, and the 
walls give various tones of red, purple, and grey, producing a 
marvellous setting to the green lake. The surface of the water is 
about 2000 feet below the rim of the crater, which is about 3013 feet 
above sea-level.^ 
Lake of Atitlan, in Guatemala, is 24 miles in length by 10 miles 
in breadth. There are several large volcanoes on its south bank ; on 
the east, north, and west, where there are no volcanoes, the slopes 
are very steep and much cut up by valleys of rivers and small streams 
flowing into the lake. It has been supposed that the basin of the 
lake is only a continuation and union of these valleys, and that, after 
they had been excavated, the volcanoes broke out on their beds and 
formed the lake by blocking the exit for the water. On the other 
hand, the west shore of the lake extends in a well-marked, almost 
precipitous bank right round to the south of the volcanoes of San 
Pedro and Atitlan, and is perfectly separate from the slopes of San 
Pedro, and to a large extent from those of Atitlan ; it is composed 
of beds of tuff, all dipping to the south towards the Pacific and away 
from the lake. This seems to show that it is the lip of an enormous 
crater, and that the volcanoes of San Pedro, Atitlan, and Toliman, 
giants as they are, are merely secondary cones thrown up on its floor. 
If that is so, this crater must certainly be one of the largest, if not 
the largest, in the world.^ 
The great Tarawera volcanic rift in North Island, New Zealand, new 
was formed at the time of the great eruption of Mount Tarawera on ^^^^ 
10th June 1886, and stretches from Mount Wahanga, the most 
northerly point of the Tarawera range, to about 600 yards north- 
west of Lake Okaro. The length of this huge fissure is about 9 miles, 
and though practically continuous, it is divided by low partitions 
into several somewhat distinct craters. As a result of the eruption 
streams were dammed and temporary lakes formed. The bed of 
Tarawera Creek, which drains Lake Tarawera, was filled up, and 
1 See E. 0. Hovey, " Camping on the Soufriere of St Vincent," Bull. Amer. 
Geogr. Soc, vol. xli. p. 72, 1909. 
2 Sec Tempest Anderson, " The Volcanoes of Guatemala," Geogr. Journ., vol. 
xxxi. p. 482, 1908. 
