Great Salt Lake

“ The top is a narrow crest, suddenly forming an acute based upon an obtuse angle.
From that eyrie, 8000 feet above sea level, the weary pilgrim first sights his shrine, the object of his long wanderings, hardships, and perils, the Happy Valley of the Great Salt Lake. The western horizon, when visible, is bounded by a broken wall of light blue mountain, the Oquirrh, whose northernmost bluff buttresses the southern end of the lake, and whose eastern flank sinks in steps and terraces into a river basin, yellow with the sunlit golden corn, and somewhat pink with its carpeting of heath-like moss. ”

“ Great Salt Lake, Utah, is a remarkable lake whose history has been carefully studied. It occupies the lowest position of an extensive basin which, in turn, forms but part of the whole great district of Utah which has geologically recently sunk thousands of feet on the west side of the great fault already described as occurring along the western base of the Wasatch Mountains. At present the lake covers about 2,000 square miles, but its area fluctuates considerably. It is scarcely believable that this big lake has an average depth of only fifteen feet and a maximum depth of only fifty feet. ”

“ Your Great Father who lives across the Great Salt Lake is your guardian and protector, and he only. He has relinquished his claim to this large and beautiful island, on which we are assembled, in order that you may have a home of your own quite separate from his white children. The soil is good, and the waters which surround the shores of this island are abundantly supplied with the finest fish. ”

“ Turning left we came around the shoulder of the mountain, and there to our left was Great Salt Lake, sparkling and blue-green in the morning light, a mountainous island in the middle of it. We could see the Casino at the end of the long pier at Saltair, a favorite resort for Salt Lake City people. We passed the miners' homes at Magna and Garfield, someone having written facetiously the sign "Mosquito Park" over the entrance to a swampy district with its little settlement of cottages. Now we came into a beautiful upland country with fine farms and every appearance [Pg 155] of prosperity. ”

“ This is, perhaps, the most rugged, desert, and dreary country, between the Western borders of the United States, and the shores of the Pacific. It is nothing else, than a wild, rocky, barren wilderness, of wrecked and ruined Nature; a vast field of volcanic desolation. Beyond the Mountains, which rise on the South of this point, is the great Salt Lake. Eighty-eight miles below the crossing of Snake River, we crossed two small branches of hot water. ”

“ And as for the Great Salt Lake, the desolate shores of this inland sea have been, for the most part, carefully avoided by both Indians and trappers, and no living being has yet been found daring enough to venture far on the bosom of its dark turbid waters; for a belief exists that a terrible whirlpool agitates their surface, ready to swallow up everything that may venture within the bounds of its dangerous influence.
Our cradles were finished on Monday, and the shanty on Saturday afternoon. ”

“ It has been said that from the south-western extremity of the Great Salt Lake a vast desert extends for hundreds of miles, unbroken by the slightest vegetation, destitute of game and water, and presenting a cheerless expanse of sandy plain or rugged mountain, thinly covered with dwarf pine or cedar, the only evidence of vegetable life. ”

“ Good climbers can make a side trip from near the Mammoth Hot Springs to the top of Quadrant Mountain, the remnant of a “biscuit cut” upland (372) , and there study the nivation process (368, Yellowstone National Park Folio, U. S. G. S.) .
The trip from the Park to Salt Lake City, over the Union Pacific Railway, passes through the Red Rock Pass, the former outlet of Lake Bonneville (423) , into the desert of the Great Basin ( Chaps. XV and XVI) . Great Salt Lake is a saline lake or sink with an interesting record of climatic changes (198, 401) . ”

“ In Nevada, at the sink of the Carson River, is an area of five square miles which was once the bed of a salt lake. The famous Great Salt Lake, between the Wahsatch Mountains and the Nevadas in America, is the remains of a large inland sea which once covered the district, and should the climate become drier than it is now, the shrinkage, which went on for ages, will be resumed, and a huge salt deposit will be formed. ”

“ They brag constantly, and largely, about Great Salt Lake City, and surely they have a right to. In the essential points of beauty, comfort, cleanliness, and good order, it has few equals, and perhaps no superiors of its age and size anywhere, and all things considered is indeed a perfect miracle for Utah. In the very heart of the great internal basin of the continent, and the centre of a busy and thriving people, it really seemed to be a natural metropolis there, and was everywhere talked of as the future workshop and mart of that region. ”

“ Almost all are saline. The largest 398 of all, Great Salt Lake, is maintained by the waters of the Wasatch and associated plateaus. No lakes occur south of Owens in the W. and Sevier in the E. (39°) ; evaporation below these limits is supreme. Most of the small closed basins, however, contain “playas,” or alkali mud flats, that are overflowed when the tributary streams are supplied with storm water.
Save where irrigation has reclaimed small areas, the whole region is a vast desert, though locally only some of the interior plains are known as “deserts.” ”

“ Capital, with new railroads—yes, and Capital, new railroads,—yes, and automobiles,—have torn the mask from the face of this treasure land. The dawn of the day of this land of mystery between the Rockies and the Sierra is here. Salt Lake City is now probably the greatest smelting center of the world and the once named ‘Great American Desert’ is helping give as neighbors to the green fields, running streams and fruitful orchards of the Mormon haven, the tall chimneys and mighty fires of many furnaces. Discoveries of new mining districts follow hard one upon the heels of another. ”

“ As we{157} approach the “Great Dead Sea” of America we see that gathering salt is the chief industry, and we pass many basins or dams where hundreds of tons of this useful commodity are procured through the process of evaporation. Arriving at our destination we find Saltair is a magnificent mammoth pavilion built on the waters of Great Salt Lake, 4000 feet from shore. A track resting upon piles connects the pavilion with the mainland, and over this our train is run. ”

“ All the first day we ride through brisk Mormon villages, prosperous in their waving cornfields and their heavy trade with the mines. At a distance is the Great Salt Lake,—properly an inland sea, like the Caspian and Sea of Aral,—having a large tributary, the Bear River, and no outlet. ”

“ The Wasatch range is now plainly visible, coasting the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake, and winding around to the southwest until they enclose a valley that by Mormon industry has been converted into a veritable paradise, ramified as it is by canals that render it prolific with nearly everything that fertile soil can produce. ”

“ Nowhere is the absence of trees, the utter desolation of the scenery, more impressive than in a view from the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake. The broad plain which intervenes between its margin and the foot of the Wahsatch Range is almost entirely lost sight of ”

“ The lands immediately about the lake are flat, rising almost imperceptibly to the base of abrupt hills, which are broken in places by soft and sandy barriers, irreclaimable for agriculture, but here and there fit for grazing; where springs exist, they burst out at too low a level for irrigation. The meridional range of the Oquirrh, at whose northern point we were standing, divides the Great Salt Lake Valley from its western neighbor Tooele or Tuilla, which in sound curiously resembles the Arabic Tawíleh—the Long Valley. ”

“ View of Salt Lake Valley and City—Tabernacle—History of the Mormons—Joe Smith—Came to Kirtland, Ohio—Brigham Young Converted—Located at Independence, Missouri—Located at Nauvoo, Illinois—Joe and Hiram Smith Killed—Emigrated to Council Bluffs—Came to Salt Lake—Trouble with the Government—Mormon Theology.
Winding down a deep gulch, through which runs a mountain-stream, we came out upon the plateau that overlooks the great Salt Lake Valley from the south. It is a scene of rare natural beauty. ”

“ The corporate limits aggregate about fifty square miles; no city in the world, perhaps, possesses streets of such an extraordinary width. Through their whole vast length the magnificent trees which fringe them are irrigated by streams of pure water flowing from the several cañons in the vicinity. By this constant passage of these mountain streams, the air is deliciously cooled, and Salt Lake City made one of the most beautiful and charming places on the North American continent. ”

“ Along the Eastern base of the California Mountains, there are, probably, enough of these productive spots, to induce men, in time, to inhabit them. They might be made somewhat profitable, for grazing. There is a region, of considerable extent, in the neighborhood of the Great Salt Lake, which would afford excellent pasturage. ”

“ Fresh water and green turf are unknown through an extent of one hundred miles, while a coating of solid salt incrusts the earth, upon which the mules pass as upon ice. This lake never freezes. The river Utah, or the Jordan as it is called by the Mormons, is a small river of fresh water which unites Lake Utah to the Great Salt Lake. ”

“ This lake was, in former times, of much greater extent than at present, covering a large proportion of the Great Basin, as is shown by the pebbly lines marking its former beach, more than seven hundred feet above its present level, and which stretch for hundreds of miles unbroken along the bases of the mountains. Mr. Clarence King, in his explorations during the year 1869, discovered and traced the former outlet of this vast inland sea, which was through the Snake, or Shoshone River, to the Pacific Ocean. Few places can vie with Salt Lake City in natural beauty of location. ”

“ Its tributaries are the Bear, Ogden, Jordan and Weber, the Jordan bringing the fresh waters of Lake Utah; but Great Salt Lake has no outlet save evaporation, and its clear water consequently holds at all times a considerable quantity of saline matter in solution. Several species of insects and a brine-shrimp have been found in its waters, but no fishes; large flocks of water-fowls frequent the shores. ”

“ Great Salt Lake maintains a steamer or two for excursion purposes, and the waters of California had at one time a fair-sized fleet of boats that navigated San Francisco bay and the streams flowing into it. Their importance has diminished since the construction of the railway, and at present the steamboats of the Golden State are of no great consequence. Those that exist are managed more on the eastern than on the Mississippi system, but the rates are generally higher than on the Atlantic coast. ”

“ PRICES AT GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.As in India, the mere necessaries of life at Great Salt Lake City are cheap: the foreign luxuries, and even comforts, are exorbitantly dear. A family may live almost for nothing upon vegetables grown in their own garden, milk from their own cows, wheaten bread, and butter which derives a peculiar sweetness from the bunch-grass. ”

“ This, as I have before said, is the old seaport or landing for Los Angelos, and all the country about there, whence supplies were then wagoned into Arizona, Southern Nevada, and even Utah. The Salt Lake merchants, then barred from the East in winter by the heavy snows on the Rocky Mountains, were in the habit of eking out their stocks by purchases in San Francisco, which they shipped 400 miles down the coast to San Pedro, and from here wagoned them via San Bernardino and Cajon Pass, through Southern Nevada, 800 miles more to Great Salt Lake. ”