Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-09-07
GQ(ortester Daily Syn.
[From the y. Y Tribune
GREELEYS OVERLAND JOURNEY.
SALT LAKE AND IFS ENvlRoNs.

SALT LAKE AND IFS ENVIRoNS.
SALT LAKE City, July Is 1859.
A party OF us visited the Lake on Saturday.
1t is not visible from this city, though it must
be from the mountains which rise directly
north of it, and more remotely on all sides /;
but Antelope, Stansbury, and perhaps other
islands IN the Lake, being mainly covered by
high, rugged hills or mountains, are in plain
sight from every part Of the Valley. The best
OF these islands is possessed by :" the Church "
(Mormon) as background or rancho for its
numerous cattle, and is probably the best tract
Tor that purpose in the whole Territory. That
portion of the Lake between it and the Valley
is SO shallow that cattle may at most seasons
be safely driven over to the island, while it is
so deep between three and four feet that
none will stray back again, and it would be
difficult and dangerous to steal cattle thence in
the night, when that business is mainly carried
on. SO the Church has a large and capital
pasture, and her cattle multiply and wax fat
at the least possible expense. The best canon
for wood near this city is likewise owned by
the Church "-hoW owned | cannot pretend
to say-but whoever draws wood from it must
deposit every third load in the Churchs capa-
cious yard These are but specimens Of the
management whereby, though the Saints are
generally poor-otten quite poor, so that a
Saint who has three wives can sometimes
y
Church " has comfortable allowance of trea-
sures laid up on earth. And her leading apos-
ties and dignitaries also, by curious coinc-
dence, seem to be in thriving circumstances.
1t looks to me as though neither they nor the
church could afford to have the world burned
up for while yet.
Crossing, just west of the city, the Jordan
which drains the fresh waters of Lake Utah
into Salt Lake. and is a large, sluggish creek,
of Tt of tha aof.lD Z riratip
from the northern hIs-the river interceptng
all streams from that quarter-and are once
more on a parched-clay plain, covered mainly
with our old acquaintance, sagebuSh and
greasewood; though there are wet, springy
tracts, especially toward the southern noun
tains and near the Lake, which produce rank,
coarse grass. Yet this seeming desert has
naturally better soil than the hard, pebbly,
gravel on which the city stands, and which if
rigation has converted into bounteous gardens
and orchards. L rejoice to perceive that dam
over the Jordan is in progress, whereby a con-
siderable section Of the valley of that river (40
miles long by an average of 20 broad) is to be
irriga ted. There are serious obstacles to the
full success OF this enterprise in the inequality
of the plain, which is gouged and cut up by
numerous (now dry warehouses; but,
if this project is well engineered, it will
double the productive capacity Of this val
absence of judicious and systematic irrigation,
there are far too many cattle and sheep on
this great common, as the gaunt look of most
of the cattle abundantly testifies. Water
also is scarce and bad here; we tried several
of the springs which are found at the bases of
the southern mountains, and found them all
brackish, while not single stream flows from
those mountains in the five or six miles that
we skirted them, and am told that they afford
but one or two scanty rivulets through the
whole extent of this valley. In the absence Of
irrigation nothing is grown or attempted but
wild grass of the halt-dozen cabins we have
passed between the Jordan and the lake, not
one had even the semblance of a garden or
Ofany cultivation whatever. shrewd woman
who had lived seven years near the lake assured
me that it would do no good to attempt cultiya-
ton there; "too much alkai' was her reason. |
learn that on the city side Of the Jordan, when
irrigation was first introduced and cultivation
attempted, the soil, whenever allowed to become
dry, was covered, for the first year or two, with
some whitish alkaline substance or compound;
hct this was soon washed out and washed off by
the water, so that no alkali now exhibits itself,
and this tract produces handsomely. Let the
Jordan be so damned and its water conducted
into lacteral canals that its whole valley may
be amply irrigated, and there are few tracts Of
area that will produce more generously, albeit
a majority of its acres now seem as sterile and
hopeless as the great American Desert
That this lake should be salt, is no anomaly.
All large bodies of water into which streams
discharge themselves, while they have severally
no outlet, are or should be salt. Ii one such
is fresh, that is an anomaly indeed. Lake
Utah probably receives as much saline matter
as Salt Lake; but she discharges it through
the Jordan and remains herself fresh; while
Salt Lake, having no issue save by evapora-
ton, is probably the safest body Of water on
earth the ocean is comparatively fresh; even
the Mediterranean at Leghorn is not half so
salt. / am told that three barrels OF this water
yield barrel of salt; that seems rather strong,
yet its intense sadness no one who has not had
it in his eyes, his mouth, his nostrils, can
realize. You can no more sink in it than i'll q
clay-bank, but very little of it in your lungs
would suffice to strangle you. You make your
way in from a hot rocky beach, over a chaos
of volcanic basat that is trying to the feet /;
but at depth Of yard or more you have
fine sand bottom, and here the bathing is de-
ightful.
The water is of light green color for ten
or twenty rods; then deeply, darkly, beauti-
fully blue" No fish can live in it; no frog
abideS in it few birds are ever seen dipping
into it. The rugged mountains in and about
it ust such scarped and scanned and quilted
precipices as have been describing ever since
| reached Denver-have little fir and cotton :
wood or quaking asp in their deeper ravnes or
behind their taller cliffs but look bare and
desoate to the casual Observer and these cut
the lake into sections and hide most of it from
view Probably, less than third of it is visi-
BILE from any single point But this sutices.
LIFE IN UTAH.
These Mormons are in the main an industrl-
Gus, frugal, hard-working people. Few of
them are habitual oilers; few live by profess
sions or pursuits that require no physical exer-
ton. They make work for but few lawyers
l know but four among them-their differences
and disputes are usually settled in and by the
church they have no female outcasts, few
doctors, and pay no salaries to their preachers
at least, the leaders say so. But small
portion of them use tea and coffee. Formerly
they drank little or no liquor but, since the
army came in last year, money and Whisky
have both been more abundant and now they
drink considerably. More than thousand
barrels of whisky have been sold in this city
within the last year, at an average OF not less
than SO per gallon, making the total cost to
consumers over $250,0O0, whereof the Nor
mons have paid at least half. Ii they had
thrown instead $150,000 in hard cash into the
deepest part of Salt Lake, it would have been
far better for them. The appetite they are ac
quiring or renewing will cling to them after the
army and its influx of cash shall have depart
ed and saints who now drink a little will find
themselves as thirsty as their valley, before
they suspect that they care anything for Ii
quor. AS yet believe, they have few or no
drunkards but there is nothing more deceit
full than the appetite for liquor. AS yet, Utal
has not single export of any kind the army
l,,a a., l.