You think of a lake and its  usually pictures of still open waters on which you can float a boat that come to your mind. Not so with the lakes buried under Antartica. These lakes are hidden below many layers of ice, but they do exist as the US scientists who drilled into Lake Whilliam recently proved.

This lake which is buried almost under a kilometer of Antarctic ice was sensed by the drilling equipement. The breakthrough was then verified by sending down a remotely controlled camera. The scientific exploration project at Lake Whilliam is not th eonly one of its kind.

There have been ongoing efforts to shed light on the buried lakes of Antartica by a number of different nations. Last December a team of British investigators were unfortunate and had to leave their study of Lake Ellsworth incomplete as they faced technical problems.

The Russians were sucessful in obtaining samples from Lake Vostok, another buried lake in Antartica. They have not yet announced any major discoveries based on the tests conducted on the water sample as yet. There are more than 300 identified bodies of water under the Antartic ice and the scientific exploration project will be a long one.