A WONDERFUL LAKE.
Reading edition
BY C. J. M.
Carniola, in the western part of Austria, and fronting on the Adriatic Sea, is a region remarkable chiefly for its subterranean streams and immense caverns and abysses. It is very mountainous, being traversed by spurs of the Alps, and covers an area of 3857 square miles. Its inhabitants are a hardy, thrifty race, engaged in the cultivation of wine, timber, maize, and millet.
Of all the wonders of nature to be met with in this country the one most deserving of notice is the lake of Zirknitz. This lake takes its name from a small market-town with a population of 1500, and situated about thirty miles northeast of Trieste, the principal sea-port city of Austria.
Lake Zirknitz lies in a deep valley surrounded by beautiful hills. It is a fair sheet of water, six miles long and three miles broad, and teeming with fishes and water-fowl. The monotony of this large expanse of water is relieved by five small islands, on one of which is the village of Ottok. These islands are favorite resorts for picnic parties. The bottom of the lake is formed of limestone rock, and is full of clefts and fissures. During prolonged dry weather the waters pass into these caverns, carrying their finny inhabitants with them. The church bells give warning when the first sign of the sinking of the lake is observed, and the people hasten to make the most of the fishing while there is yet time.
When the water has entirely disappeared, a crop of luxuriant herbage takes its place, affording pasture for the cattle of the neighboring farmers, who are thus enabled to reap where before they went a-fishing. With the recurrence of heavy rains the lake gushes forth from its under-ground retreat, rises speedily to its normal level, and resumes its ordinary appearance.
Until a comparatively recent time the causes of the periodical disappearance of the lake were involved in mystery, and people were content to accept as a fact that which they could not explain. In later years, however, scientific men have devoted many years of their lives to the task of exploring these under-ground recesses, and with the happiest results.
Although the subterranean geography of this region has been, to the present, only sketched out, still enough has been discovered to satisfy them that many of the under-ground passages extend to long distances, and it has been conclusively proven that the waters of the Zirknitz Lake at the periods of their recession flow through under-ground channels into the river Unz, which further on joins the river Save, a tributary of the Danube.