LUGANO, LAKE OF, lying between Lago Maggiore and the Lake of Como, N. Italy (anc. Lacus Ceresius). The great promontory of Monte Salvatore (3,004 ft.) nearly cuts off the western arm from the main lake. The area is 191 sq.m., greatest length about 22 m., greatest width 2 m., and greatest depth 945 ft., surface 885 ft. above sea-level. Between Melide (south of the town of Lugano) and Bissone (on the east shore) the lake is so shallow that a great stone dam has been built across for the St. Gotthard railway line and the carriage road. The chief town is Lugano (at its north end), which by the St. Gotthard line is 19 m. from Bellinzona and 9 m. from Capolago, the station at the south eastern extremity of the lake, which is but 8 m. by rail from Como. At the south-western extremity a railway leads south-west from Porto Ceresio to Varese (9 m.). Porlezza, at the east end of the lake, is 8 m. by rail from Menaggio on the Lake of Como, while Ponte Tresa, at the west end of the lake, is about the same dis tance by electric railway from Luino on Lago Maggiore. Of the
total area of the lake, about 71 sq.m. are in the Swiss canton of Ticino (Tessin), formed in 1803 out of the conquests made by the Swiss from the Milanese in 1512. The remainder of the area is in Italy to which also belongs the small enclave of Campione, almost opposite the town of Lugano. The lake lies among the outer spurs of the Alps that divide the Ticino (Tessin) basin from that of the Adda, where the calcareous strata have been disturbed by the intrusion of porphyry and other igneous rocks. It is fed by numerous torrents issuing from short glens in the surrounding mountains, while it is drained by the Tresa, an unimportant stream flowing into Lago Maggiore. The first steamer was placed on the lake in 1856. (W. A. B. C.)