GREAT SALT LAKE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4328, 24 August 1937, Page 7

GREAT SALT LAKE

CURIOUS PHENOMENON | HELPS AND HINDERS MAH | I In the north-western part of the State of Utah;, U.S.A., and about 4,2(Joft above sea level, is the famous and mysterious Great Salt Lake, says a writer in the Melbourne ‘ Age.’ Like the Dead Sea, in Palestine, it is fed by a river called the Jordan, and both lakes have such a specific gravity that a swimmer cannot sink in them. An old Harper’s ‘ Monthly ’ contains photographs of a number of young people floating in the Great Salt Lake, some of them in a sitting attitude, with their arms folded across their knees. The lake has no outlet, is 75 miles long, and from 50 to 50 broad, and its mean depth varies from 25 to 15ft. East of it are the purple foothills of the snowclad Wasatch Mountains, and in the west its emerald and purple waves wash the base of a range called the Oquirrh. Geologists tell us that the lake is a shrunken descendant of a prehistoric ancestor now spoken of as Lake Bonneville, in honour of the man who discovered its shoreline in 1831. Mr L. R. Bascom. in ‘ Harper’s,’ says “ it is supposed that climatic changes finally brought about its shrinkage by evaporation until the waters were too low to connect with the stream that joined the Snake River through Red Rock Pass. .... ... The desert in which it lies is an old lake bed, consisting of a valley filled with mud. A drill bored its way through eight feet of salt, then 200 ft of mud, then 30ft of solid salt, followed by another 200 ft of mud. The lake, apparently in protest against man’s invasion of its neighbourhood by telephone wires, sends its spray over 15 miles to coat the insulators with a thick crust of salt, which destroys or oreatly reduces their insulating properties. Each of the insulators has to be washed every two years, and _ this is done with steam, generated m a portable boiler, and projected from a nozzle. It used to take 30 seconds to wash each insulator, but modern methods may now be in use. Another remarkable' feature is that the lake is sometimes 90 miles long, sometimes only 60, a change which has given rise to curious speculations. At one time scientists predicted its complete and final disappearance, but suddenly it rose higher than it had been for years. The brine from the lake is pumped into salt beds, which cover several hundred acres, and, after giving time lor evaporation, the “ harvest is reaped in August and September. The plains of snow-white salt aie ploughed, and then the salt is heaped up in pyramids. The Southern Pacific Railway'carries away the harvest. Hie engineers had long cast an angiy e\e on the Great Salt Lake for barring their way, and at last, in 1868, they built the railroad across creeks and gullies. To save curves and 43 miles round the lake, it was crossed vest of Ogden by what is called the Lucia cutoff, a trestle and gravel road about 27 miles long. The work was finished in 1903, and one now “ sails ” across Great Salt Lake in a train. Unless he leans far out of the window he cannot see a trestle. Along the track are pavilions with hundreds of bathrooms where visitors array themselves in what they call “ rented suits ” of red, blue, or 'indigo. Facilities for amusements of all kinds are also provided. The lake possesses several islands, tlie largest of which is Antelope Island, standing out like an uncut amethyst. Cattle graze on it, and when the lake is low they are driven across to the mainland Another called Hat or Egg Island, is crowded with gulls, pelicans, and herons. When one steps ashore the birds rise in clouds so dense as to darken the sky and turn the waters from green to grey. A glance at the map of America shows in the western mountain system a long coast the Cascade Mountains and the Sierra Nevada lying on the Pacific slope. East of them is the Great Western Plateau, with the Great Basin in the south, and in that basin is the Groat Salt Lake. America is a great country, and never wearies of the adjective. We who are Britishers cannot consistently blame America in this matter, for we speak of Great Britain. HOME OF A SECT. When we think of the Salt Lake as being worthy of the adjective, we give attention, perhaps, to its situation, its salinity, its vagaries, and its industrial wealth, but the chief interest of the vast majority centres in its association with the religion known as Mormonism. Joseph Smith claimed to have had a vision in which a heavenly messenger told him he was a chosen vessel of God, and would find a book written upon golden plates containing the everlasting Gospel. Along with the plates would be found what we would call a pair of supernatural spectacles, by means of which he could translate the contents of the book into English. It was the Book of Mormon, and 11 other witnesses certified that they had seen it. Unfortunately, the plates were returned to the angel. The Book of Mormon claims to be of equal authority with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and in 1830 the Church of the Latter Day Saints came into existence with six members. They believed the millennium was at hand, and the New Jerusalem would be built in the heart of the American continent. The Saints achieved the glory of persecution. Joseph Smith was murdered, and under his successor. Brigham Young, the whole body of the saints left Missouri in search of a home in or beyond the Rocky Mountains. In 1847 they arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake and began ploughing the same day. Utali was created a territory in 1858. but was not admitted to Statehood until it had agreed that polygamous or plural marriages should be prohibited for ever. This was done in 1896, and Utah became an American State. The Mormon denomination has its emissaries in many lands, and has an offshoot calling itself the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose first head was Joseph Smith, son of the original founder. CAPITAL OF STATE. Salt Lake City is the capital of the State, and is a beautiful and progressive centre, in which all denominations are represented. What was once a desert is now a nourishing countryside, where industry is part of the religion of

the Mormons. Laugh as we may at their grotesque interpretations of Scripture, the crudities of their system, and the fact that they gave up polygamy only at the command of the State, we yet recognise their genius for civil and religious liberty. Artemus Ward and hosts of others have held up their practices to ridicule, but the latest figures show that there are 606,561 Mormons in the United States. An article in the ‘ Scientific American.’ 1904, predicted that the Great Salt Lake, the Dead Sea of America, was doomed. It was obviously drying up, and within a quarter of a century would vanish. Not only a quarter of a century has passed, but a whole generation, and the lake is still there. The shrinkage is assigned to three causes—evaporation, irrigation, lessening the lake’s intake from the rivers and subterranean outlet. Science has its romances, and not the least of them is its occasional claim to infallibility. In 1922 it was said that the bridge across the lake was the longest in the world. It was originally 27-1; miles long, but about eight miles were replaced by a fill. The vast flocks of seagulls on the lake ou one occasion saved the early settlers from ruin by an invasion of locusts ; the birds ate thou up. The early settlers in Victoria came to a fertile country; the first settlors near the Great Salt Lake came to a desert, and they made it rejoice and blossom like the rose. If it is a triumph to make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, what is to be said of the skill which conquered Utah and built a noble city near the shores of the Great Salt Lake?