a collection of waters contained in some cavity in an inland place, of a large extent, surrounded with land, and having no communication with the ocean. Lakes may be divided into four kinds. 1. Such as neither receive nor send forth rivers. 2. Such as emit rivers, without receiving any. 3. Such as receive rivers, without emitting any. And, 4. Such as both receive and send forth rivers. Of the first kind, some are temporary, and others perennial. Most of those that are temporary owe their origin to the rain, and the cavity or depression of the place in which they are lodged: thus in India there are several such lakes made by the industry of the natives, of which some are a mile, and some two miles, in circuit; these are surrounded with a stone wall, and being filled in the rainy months, supply the inhabitants in dry seasons, who live at a great distance from springs or rivers. There are also several of this kind formed by the inundations of the Nile and the Niger; and in Muscovy, Finland, and Lapland, there are many lakes formed, partly by the rains, and partly by the melting of the ice and snow: but most of the perennial lakes, which neither receive nor emit rivers, probably owe their rise to springs at the bottom, by which they are constantly supplied. The second kind of lakes, which emit without receiving rivers, is very numerous. Many rivers flow from these as out of cisterns; where their springs being situated low within a hollow place, fill the cavity and make it a lake, which not being capacious enough to hold all the water, it overflows and forms a river: of this kind is the Wolga, at the head of the river Wolga; 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 Muscovy, which is the source of the river Shakina; the great lake Chaamay, which emits four very large rivers, which water the countries of Siam, Pegu, &c. viz. the Menan, the Ava, the Capoumouo, the Laquia, &c. The third species of lakes, which receive rivers but emit none, apparently owe their origin to those rivers which, in their progress from their source, falling into some extensive cavity, are collected together, and form a lake of such dimensions as may lose as much by exhalation as it continually receives from these sources: of this kind is that great lake, improperly called the Caspian sea; the lake Asphaltites, also called the Dead sea; the lake of Geneva, and several others. Of the fourth species, which both receive and emit rivers, we reckon three kinds, as the quantity they emit is greater, equal, or less, than they receive. If it be greater, it is plain that they must be supplied by springs at the bottom; if less, the surplus of the water is probably spent in exhalations; and if it be equal, their springs just supply what is evaporated by the sun.