In the state of Louisiana are the lakes of _Maurepas_ and _Pontchartrain_. The first of these is of a circular figure, twelve feet deep, and fourteen miles in diameter. In the time of high floods, it has a communication with the Mississippi, by means of the river Amité, or Ibberville; and this inundation, which lasts only four months annually, occasions what is erroneously called the island of New Orleans, to be then an island in fact, for at no other time is it environed with water, the city of New Orleans being situated on a peninsula.[21] Lake Maurepas communicates with Lake Pontchartrain, by a stream seven miles long, and three hundred yards wide, and divided by an island extending from the lake to within a mile of Pontchartrain, into two branches, of which the southern is the safest and deepest. Lake Pontchartrain is nearly of a circular form, forty miles in its greatest length, and thirty miles in its greatest breadth, and eighteen feet deep. From this lake to the sea is ten miles, by a passage called the _Regolets_, four hundred yards wide, and lined with marshes on each side. On the west side of the Mississippi are the lakes of _Great_ and _Little Barataria_. The _Catahoola Lake_, sixteen miles long, and four broad, is the source of a stream of the same name, which, uniting with the Washita and Bayou Tenza rivers, form the Black river. This lake, during the dry months, is covered with the most luxuriant herbage; and is then the residence of immense herds of deer, and water-fowl, which feed on the grass and grain. The other lakes of Louisiana are _Calcasin_, _Borgne_, and _Bistineau_. GENERAL REMARKS ON LAKES.