Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1901 — A STRANGE LAKE. [ARTICLE]

A STRANGE LAKE.

The PceollarUlei of a. Body of Water In Australia. Lake George is situated about four miles from the railway station at Bungendore, Australia, and has for many years engaged the attention of scientific men' by reason of the singular and inexplicable phenomena connected with it The estimates of its size vary considerably according to circumstances, but when moderately full about 20 by 7 miles will be found tolerably correct. At either end the land is fully 100 feet above the highest recorded surface of the lake, which possesses no known outlet, although it is fed by numerous mountain creeks. The lake was discovered by a bushman in 1820 and was known to the blacks as the “big water.” It was then supposed to form the source of a river having its mouth on the south coast, but subsequent visitors were much perplexed at the manner in which the blacks avoided the lake, of which they appeared to entertain a superstitious dread, one aged aboriginal stating she had seen it all covered with trees, another explaining that the whole of the water sunk through the bottom and disappeared, while others remembered the lake only as a series of small ponds. During the following 20 years considerable variations were noted in the depth and extent of the lake. In 1841 the lake became partially dried up, the mpist portions being simply grassy swamps. A few months later large numbers of sheep were pastOred in the bed of the lake, but fresh water had to be carted for the use of the shepherds, that of the lake being too salt for human consumption. The place remained more or less dry until 1852, the year of the great floods in that part of the colony, when it again became filled, with an average depth of nine feet. Since then the surface level of the lake has varied considerably, but the bed has never been so dry as in former years. There are indications that many hundreds of years ago the lake covered a far larger area than any yet recorded, remains of trees over 100 years old being found In spots formerly under water. The saline character of the lake is the more remarkable by reason of Its being fed by pure and sparkling fresh water streams.