CONIO, LAKE OF, the Lacus Larius of the ancients, is a lake of Italy, which stretches between two chains of mountains at the foot of the Alps. It is about fifty miles long, from three to six broad, and from 40 to WO feet deep. It is of a serpentine form, and has its banks in dented with numerous creeks and harbours. It is sub ject to sudden squalls, and to violent and unexpected swells. The lower regions of the mountains with which the lake is encircled, are covered with olives, vines, and orchards: the middle regions are encircled with groves of lofty chesnuts ; and the higher regions are either downs or forests of pine and fir, the most elevated ridges being either naked or crowned with perpetual snow. " Their sides," says Mr Eustace, "arc seldom formed of one continued steep, but usually interrupted by fields and levels, extending sometimes into wide plains, which supply abundant space for every kind of cultivation. These fertile plains arc generally at one third, and sometimes at two-thirds of the total elevation. On or near these levels are most of the towns and vil lages that so beautifully diversify the sides of the moun tains. Various mines of iron, lead, and copper, arc now, as they were anciently, spread over the surface of the Larian territory, and daily opened in the bowels of its mountains ; besides quarries of beautiful marble, which supply Milan and all the neighbouring cities with the materials and ornaments of their most magnificent churches."
At a village called Pliniana is the intermittent fountain, so minutely described by Pliny. It bursts from a rock in a small court behind the house, and increases and decreases thrice every day, although the ebb and flow are sometimes irregular.
The principal places w orthy of being noticed by a traveller are, the little wooded island of St Giovanni, the villages of Balbiano, Leona, and 'Villa, the last of which is supposed to be the site of Pliny's villa; the promontory and village of Bellagio, the village of Ca denabbia, which should be the head quarters of a tra veller who wishes to explore the lake ; Bellano on the opposite side of the lake ; the cavern of L'Orrido ; the village of Capriano, supposed by some to be the real situation of Pliny's lower villa; the stream and cascade of Latte, and Menaggio, from which there is a full view of the lake from Bellagio to Garedona and Domaso. Beyond Domaso the lake of Como receives the Adda, after which its channel is narrowed, and it takes the name of the Lago di Chiavenna. See the works quoted in the preceding article.