90 L A 
informed him that he fliould perifti by the hand of his fon ; 
and in confequence of this dreadful intelligence he re- 
lolved never to approach bis wife. A day l'pent in de¬ 
bauch and intoxication made him violate his vow, and 
Jocalta brought forth a fon. The child as foon as born 
was given to a fervant, with orders to put him to death. 
The fervant wa.s moved with companion, and only ex- 
pofed him on mount Cithaeron, where his life was pre- 
i'erved by a fliepherd. The child, called CEdipus, was 
educated in the court of Polybus; and an unfortunate 
meeting with his father in a narrow road proved his ruin. 
CEdipus ordered his father to make way for him, without 
knowing who he was; Laius refufed, and was inftantly 
murdered by his irritated Ion. See CEdipus. 
LAIZE, a town of France, in the department of the 
Saone and Loire : fix miles north of Macon. 
LAIZE, a river of France, in the department of the 
Calvados, which runs into the Orne two miles louth-weft 
of St. Martin de Fontenay. 
LAK, a town of Hungary : eighteen miles eaft-fouth- 
eaft of Canifcha. 
LAKE,y. [lac, Fr. lacus, Lat.] A large diffufion' of 
inland water: 
He adds the running fprings and Handing lakes, 
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes. Dryden. 
A fmall plalh of water. 
The three chief lakes of Judea were, the Lake Afphal- 
tites, the Lake of Tiberias, and the Lake Semechon ; there 
was alfo, towards Egypt, the Lake Sirkon. Belides thefe, 
fome pools were alfo called lakes ; as that of Cendervia, 
whence the little river Beleus flowed, eaft of Ptolemais ; 
that near Cafarea Paleftina ; the Lake Phiala, at the foot 
of Libanus; the Lake Jazer, and that of Helhbon beyond 
Jordan. 
Lacus is often ufed for a ciftern : Look unto the hole of the 
pit (lacus) from whence ye are digged, fays Il'aiah, li. i. that 
is, “the covenant of your fathers and mothers.” And, as 
their tombs were generally holes in rocks, or under ground, 
wherein the bodies of the dead were difpofed in a fort of 
niches, the Scripture often calls tombs lakes ; fo, in the 
Vulgate verfion, “ Lacum aperuit et effodit eum, et incidit 
in terram, quam fecit He made a pit, and digged it, and 
is fallen into the ditch which he made. Pf. vii. 15. Again : 
Unto thee will I cry, 0 Lord my rock ; be not filent to me ; an- 
fwer me ; lejl, if thou be filent to me, I become like them that go 
down into the pit, (in lacum.) Pf. xxviii. 1. The Hebrew 
*TQ fignifies a pit, a ciftern, a lake, a fepulchre, a hollow 
deep place, wherein wild beafts are (hut up, (fuch as lions,) 
or fiaves, as ftill praftifed in Africa and other places. 
Zechariah fays, ix. 11. 1 have font forth thy pr if oners out of 
the pit, (de lacu ;) i.e. out of prifon. Jeremiah was call 
into a prifon in which was a well of mire , without water. 
fer. xxxviii. 6. Lacus novijjimus fignifies the deepeft, the 
i urtheft, part of the tomb, or prifon : l called upon thy name, 
0 Lord, out of the low dungeon, (de lacu noviflimo.) Lam, 
iii. 55. And Ezekiel xxxii. 23, fpeaking of the king of 
Aflyria’s fepulchre, fays, that it is placed in the fides of the 
pit, (in noviflimis laci.) 
In Paleltine, wine and oil are preferved in great tubs, or 
fubterranean cifterns, nearly in the fame manner as wa¬ 
ter is preferved by us ; thefe are likewife called lakes : fo 
that, when talking of a prefs, they fay, they dig a lake, or 
fubterraneous great tub, for receiving the wine. Thus, 
Matth. xxi. 33. A houfeholder planted a vineyard, and dig¬ 
ged a wine-prefs-, here the word in the Vulgate verfion is 
lacum. And St. John, Rev. xiv. 19, 20, fays, that the 
angel gathered the grapes to cajl into the great wine-prefs, 
or lake, of the wrath of God. 
Lakes, in the common acceptation of the term, may be 
divided into four kinds : 1. Such as neither receive nor 
fend forth rivers. 2. Such as emit rivers, without re¬ 
ceiving any. 3. Such as receive rivers, without emitting 
any. And, 4. Such as both receive and fend forth rivers. 
K E. 
Of the firft kind, fome are temporary, and others pe¬ 
rennial. Moll of thole that are temporary owe their ori¬ 
gin to the rain, and the cavity or depreflion of the place 
in which they are lodged ; thus in India there are feveral 
fuch lakes made by the indultry of the natives, of which 
fome are a mile, and fome two, in circuit; thefe are fur- 
rounded with a (lone wall, and, being filled in the rainy 
months, fupply the inhabitants in dry feafons, who live 
at a great diltance from fprings or rivers. There are all'o 
feveral of this kind formed by the inundations of the Nile 
and the Niger; and in Mulcovy, Finland, and Lapland, 
there are many lakes, formed, partly by the rains, and partly 
by the melting of the ice and fnow : but moft of the pe¬ 
rennial lakes, which neither receive nor emit rivers, pro¬ 
bably owe their rife to fprings at the bottom, by which 
they are conftantly fupplied. Dr. Halley is of opinion, 
that all great perennial lakes are laiine, either in a greater 
or lefs degree ; and that this faltnefs increafes with time; 
and on this foundation he propofes a method for deter¬ 
mining the age of the world. 
The lecond kind of lakes, which emit without receiv¬ 
ing rivers, is very numerous. Many rivers flow from thefe 
as out of cifterns; where their fprings, being fituated low 
within a hollow place, firft fill the cavity and make it a 
lake, which, not being capacious enough to hold all the 
w’ater, it overflows and forms a river: of this kind is the 
Lake Soliger, at the head of the river Volga; the Lake 
Odium, at the head of the Tanais; the Adac, from whence 
one branch of the river Tigris flows; the Ozero, or White 
Lake, in Mufcovy, which is the fource of the river Shakf- 
11a; the great Lake Chaamay, which emits four very large 
rivers, which water the countries of Siam, Pegu, &c. viz. 
the Menan, the Ava, the Caipoumuo, and the Laquia, &c. 
The third fpecies of lakes are thofe wjrich receive ri¬ 
vers but emit none. Moft of thefe formerly both received 
and fent forth a river; but the one emitted has become 
dry, on account of the diminution of the influent river; 
or the cavity that contains it may have enlarged to fuch a 
degree, that the river it receives is barely fufticient to 
repair, by new fupplies, the lofs which the lake fuftains 
by evaporation. To this clafs belong, among others, the 
Cafpian Sea, as it is improperly called, which receives the 
waters of the Volga, the Ural,’and fome other rivers. 
This vaft lake, which formerly occupied a much more 
confiderable fpace than at the prefent day, and not only 
included the Lake of Aral, but probably had even a com¬ 
munication with the Euxine Sea, ftill continues to de- 
creafe, in proportion as the capacity of the rivers which 
fupply it is found gradually to diminifti. Another lake 
of this kind is the Dead Sea, or Lake Afphaltites, in Pa- 
leftine. Such was the lake that formerly covered Cache- 
mire, which fee. Lakes of this kind will be naturally 
formed in every cafe, where the waters of a river are 
inclofed, in any part of their courfe, by elevated lands. 
The firft confequence of this ftoppage is, of courfe, the 
converfion of the inclofed lands into a lake ; and, if this 
happens near the fountains of the river, and the ground 
is folid, it is likely to remain a lake for ever; the river not 
having force enough in its infant ftate to work itfelf a 
paftage through the mountains. Hence it is that more 
lakes are found near the fources of rivers than in the lower 
parts of their courfe. If the river be inclofed after it has 
gained a great acceflion of water, and, of courfe, ftrength; 
it will, indeed, at firft, form a lake, as before; but, in 
time, the place at which it runs over will be gradually 
fretted away. Thus, the Euphrates opens itfelf a paftage 
through Mount Taurus, and the Ganges through Mount 
Imaus; and, even though the bafe of the mountain be of 
the firmeft texture, it will give way to the incefiant fric¬ 
tion, through a courfe of ages ; for either of thefe pafl'ages 
may have been an operation of many thoufand years. 
The fourth fpecies, i. e. lakes which both receive and 
fend forth rivers, is the moft numerous of all. They are 
generally found in valleys, or in plains, in the proximity 
of 
