Our engraving is a portrait of a familiar character in New Zealand, chief Mete Kingi, who recently died at the age of one hundred years. He was a fine specimen of the Maori race, the native New Zealanders, a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian family. The New Zealanders surpassed all other people in the art of tattooing, to which their chiefs gave especial attention. Mete Kingi, as our picture shows, was no exception. Tattooing on the face they termed _moko_. The men tattoo their faces, hips, and thighs; the women their upper lips; for this purpose charcoal made from kauri gum is chiefly used. It has the blue color when pricked into the skin, growing lighter in shade in the course of years. The subject of our illustration embraced Christianity, and was much respected. Our engraving is from the _Illustrated Australian News_. [Illustration: THE LATE MAORI CHIEF METE KINGI.] * * * * * LAKE TAHOE. Some very interesting information by Prof. John Le Conte, is given in the _Overland Monthly_, being the result of some physical observations made by the author at Lake Tahoe, in 1873. Lake Tahoe, also called Lake Bigler, is situated at an altitude of 6,247 feet in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, partly in California, partly in Nevada. The lake has a length of 22 and a width of 12 miles. As regards its origin, the author regards it as a "plication hollow," or a trough produced by the formation of two mountain ridges, afterward modified by glacial agency. The depth of the lake is remarkable; the observations taken at ten stations along the length of the lake gave the following depths in feet: 900, 1,385, 1,495, 1,500, 1,506, 1,540, 1,504, 1,600, 1,640, 1645. This depth exceeds that of the Swiss lakes proper--Lake Geneva, for example, has a maximum depth of 1,096 feet--but is considerably less than that of Lakes Maggiore and Como, on the Italian side of the Alps. A series of observations of the temperature of the water were taken between the 11th and 18th of August. The average corrected results are as follows: Depth in feet. Temp. (C.) 0(surface).................................19.4 50..........................................17.2 100..........................................12.8 150..........................................10.0 200.......................................... 8.9 250.......................................... 8.3 300.......................................... 7.8 330 (bottom)................................. 7.5 400.......................................... 7.2 480 (bottom)................................. 6.9 500.......................................... 6.7 600.......................................... 6.1 772 (bottom)................................. 5.0 1506 (bottom)..............,.................. 4.0