GENERAL ITEMS

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 18 March 1920, Page 4

GENERAL ITEMS

I» the L-tuuoii of Valais in Switeerland, at the foot of the great Alefcseh glacier, lies a small body of water, Lake Marjelen, of which the "Journal dcs Voyages" reports a strange fact. At irregular intervals, every three or four years, Lake Marjelen completely and suddenly disappears. The phenomenon always occurs during the last days of August. Without warning, the lake empties itself, and the great. quantity of water that it contained disappear* through fissures in the rooks to swell the waters of the river Rhone. So rapidly does the lake empty jtself that the water-level of the Rhone rises several meters in a few hours, and the valley is flooded. An old custom grants a new pair of shoes to the first peasant who comes to announce the disappearance of the lake to the inhabitants of the valley. All the autumn, after the disappearance of tlie waters, the basin of Lake Marjelen remains dry, hut during the following winter and spring it gradually fills again. Scientific men believe that tho nomenon is caused in some way by the neighbouring glacier: Little by little the melting ice raises the lake until at the end of three or four years the accumulated tvater exerts such an enormous pressure upon the sides and 'bottom of the lake that the basin gradually becomes as poms as » sponge. At some point or other the water begins to escape; then it flows more rapidly, until at last it pours through the fissures on every aid-.