Another old map !

Sorting out my books, I had a real look at my fathers 'New Gresham English Dictionary', published 1926, which I remember him telling me he had bought 'to educate himself'.   If he bought it new, he must have been only 19 or 20 at the time.   Being an orphan and disabled, he hadn't had much of an education or good start in life.   I remember him sitting browsing his dictionary when I was a young child !    Its an interesting book, for as well as being a dictionary in the usual sense, it also has maps, illustrations, and 'facts' about all sorts of things, like, for e.g. how an engine works.  

But the maps at the back caught my attention, especially the one of (guess where !) Africa.   If the dictionary was published in 1926, then the maps must pre-date that.   Here's East Africa ... 

What caught my attention was L. Sugota, right in the centre, just below L. Rudolf (now renamed L. Turkana) and north of L. Baringo.   Lake Sugota ?   I know most of the Kenyan Rift Valley lakes well, but that was a new one on me, so of course I went to Google .... 

"Lake Suguta is a former lake; it formed in the Suguta Valley which is part of the East African Rift, south of Lake Turkana during the Holocene.   The lake existed a number of times during history, most recently during the early and middle Holocene when a stronger monsoon caused increased precipitation in the basin of the lake. The lake then reached a top elevation of 577 metres (1,893 ft) above sea level, when it overflowed into the Kerio River and then into Lake Turkana. The lake possibly ultimately drained into the Nile.   Between 8,000 and 5,000 years ago the lake progressively dried up; today only the small Lake Logipi occupies the area."

The word 'former' explains why I never saw L. Sugota during two or three expeditions to the Rudolf/Turkana area, and I think Lake Logipi is probably also seasonal.

"Lake Logipi is a saline, alkaline lake that lies at the northern end of the arid Suguta Valley in the northern Kenya Rift. It is separated from Lake Turkana by the Barrier volcanic complex, a group of young volcanoes that last erupted during the late 19th Century or early 20th Century."   (In 1921, in fact, effectively blocked the outflow from L. Sugota).     And I strongly suspect there is an underground outflow from the Soguta valley and Longipi into Lake Turkana. 

I love old maps !   They provoke so many extra and interesting questions, and where would we be without Google ?