AMATITLAN, or

See also:

• SAN

SAN JUAN DE AMATITLAN  , the capital of a department bearing the same name in Guatemala, on Lake Amatitlan, 15 in . S.W. of Guatemala city by the transcontinental railway from Puerto Barrios to San Jose . Pop . (1905) about ro,000 . The town consists almost entirely of one-storeyed adobe huts inhabited by mulattoes and Indians, whose chief industry is the production of cochineal . In 1840 only a small Indian village marked its site, and its subsequent growth was due to the sugar plantations established by a Jesuit settlement . The wells of the town are strongly impregnated with salt and alum, and in the vicinity there are several hot springs . Lake Amatitlan, 9 in, long and 3 m. broad, lies on the northern side of the great Guatemalan Cordillera . Above it rises the fourcratered volcano of Pacaya (8390 ft.), which was in eruption in '1870 . The outlet of the lake is a swift river 65 m. long, which cuts a way through the Cordillera, and enters the Pacific at Istapa, after forming at San Pedro a fine waterfall more than zoo ft. high .