Lake Geneva to swim at some beaches of the lake; indeed, visibility under water was near zero. By the 1980s, intense environmental pollution (eutrophication) had almost wiped out all the fish. Today, pollution levels have been dramatically cut back, and it is again considered safe to swim in the lake. Major leisure activities practiced include sailing, wind surfing, boating (including water skiing and wakeboarding), rowing, scuba diving and bathing. On a scientific footnote, in 1827, Lake Geneva was the site for the first measurement of the speed of sound in (fresh) water. French mathematician Jacques Charles François Sturm and Swiss Physicist Daniel
Lake Geneva warrant of English King Charles I, was granted on 16 April 1662 protection in and continued to live at Vevey until his death in 1692. Mary and Percy Shelley and Lord Byron holidayed by the lake and wrote ghost stories, one of which became the basis for the novel "Frankenstein". The Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi) was stabbed to death on the quayside in Geneva in September 1898. Vladimir Lenin rented a little "chalet" at the French bank, near Geneva. Actor Charlie Chaplin spent his final years and died in Vevey (there is a memorial statue of him along the