Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-08-19


the dark it could not but be dangerous. For
the brook, with its growing fringe of willow,
choke-cherTy, service-berry, and other shrubs,
continually zigzagged from side to side of the
canon, compelling us to descend and ascend its
precipitous banks and cross its sometimes
miry bed, often with smart chance of break
ing an axle or upsetting. We stopped to feed
and dine at the site of "Gen. Wells Camp
during the Mormon war of 1878, and passed
ten miles below the Notifications constructed
under his orders in that famous campaign
They seem childish affairs, more suited to the
genius of Chinese than of civilized warfare l
cannot believe that they would have stopped
the federal troops, if even tolerably led, for
more than an hour.
We reached our next station on the Weber
little after P. M, and did not leave till after
an early breakfast next yesterday morning.
The Weber is, perhaps, a little larger than the
Bear, and runs through deep, narrow, rug
ged valley, with no cultivation so far as we
saw it. Two groceries" blacksmith shop,
and the mail station, are all the habitations we
passed IN following down it some four or five
miles to the shaky pole-bridge on which we
crossed, though it is usually fordable. We
soon after struck off up rather steep, grassy
watercourse, which we followed to its head,
and thence took over divide to the head of
another such, on which our road wound down
to east Canon Creek" a fair, rapid trout
brook, running through Deep narrow ravine,
up which we twisted, crossing and recrossing
the swift stream, until we left it, greatly dimin.
ished in volume, after tracking it through
mile or so of low, swampy timber and frequent
mudholes, and turned up a little runnel that
came feebly brawling down the side of noun
tam. The trail ran for a considerable distance
exactly in the bed of this petty brooklet-said
bed consisting wholly of round, water~worn
granite boulders of all sizes from that of pig
cons egg up to that of potash kettle; when
the ravine widened little, and the trail wound
from side to side of the watercourse as chances
for toothold were proffered by one or the 9TH
er. The bottom of this ravine was poorly
tlmbered with quaking asp and balsam fir, with
some service berry, choke-cherry mountain
currant, and other bushes; the whole ascent is
four miles, not very steep except for the last
halt mile; but the trail is so bad that it is a
good two hours work to reach the summit.
But, that summit gained, we stand in a broad,
open, level space ON the top of the Wabsatch
range, with the Wintah and Bear Mountains
on either hand, forming perfect chaos of
wild, barren peaks, some of them snowy, be-
tween which we have glance at a part of
the Salt Lake Valley, some thirty miles dis
tant, though the city, much nearer, is hid
den by intervening nights, and the lake
is likewise concealed, further to the right.
The descent towards the Valley is sleeper and
shorter than the ascent from the side of Bear
River-the first half mile so fearfully steep
that Judge few passengers ever ode down it,
though carrlage-wheelS are uniformly chained
here. But though the southern face of these
mountains is covered by a far more luxuriant
shrubbery than the northern, among which
oaks and naples soon make their appearance
Tor the first time in many a weary hundred
miles, none OF these ever grow into trees in
TACT, L saw none over six feet high. Some
quaklng asps, from ten to twenty five feet high,
the largest hardly more than six inches through
cover patches of these PERCEPTIONS mountain
sides, down which and over the low interview
ing mountain they are toilsomely dragged ff-
teen or twenty miles to serve as fuel in this
city, where even such poor trash sells for SIS
to $50 per cord. The scarcity and wretched-
ness of the timber-I have not seen the raw
material for decent ax-helve growing in all
my last thousand miles of travel) lis the great
encouragement and drawback with regard to
all this region, The parched sandy clay or
clayey sand OF the rldIns, uIsapI,e:~a .iss,--y
miles back; there has been rich, black soil, at
least in the valleys, ever since we crossed We
Der River but the timber is still scarce, small
and poor, in the ravines, while ninety-nine
hundredths of the surface of the mountains is
utterly bare of it. In the absence OF coal, how
can a region so unblest be ever thickly settled
and proftably cultivated
The descent of the mountain on this side is
but two miles in length, with the Mail Compa-
ny's station at the bottom. Here (thirteen
miles from the city, twenty-seven from Bear
River,) we had expected to stop for the night,
but our new conductor, seeing that there was
still two or three hours of good daylight, re-
solved to come on. So, with fresh teams, we
soon crossed the "ittle mountain '-steep, but
hardly q mil in aSpant and hut half mile in
immediate descent-and ran rapidly down
some ten miles through the narrow ravine
known as Emigration Canon" where the
road, though much traversed by Mormons as
well as emigrants and merchant trains, is ut
terly abomnabe and, passing over but two
or three miles of intervening plain, were in
this city just as twilight was deepening into
night.
SALT LAKE CITY wears pleasant aspect to
the emigrant or traveller, weary, dusty, and
Drowned with a thousand miles Of jolting, ford
ing, camping, through the scorched and naked
American Desert 1t is located mainly on the
beach of hard gravel that slopes southwark
from the foot of the mountains towards the
lake valley the houses-generally small and
of one story-are all built of adobe (sun-har-
dened brick), and have neat and quiet look ;
while the uniform breadth of the streets teight
rods) and the magnificent distances" usually
preserved by the buildings leach block con-
tanning ten acres, divided into eight lots CIV
ing quarter of an acre for buildings and an
acre for garden, fruit, &C., to each household
err, make up an ensemble seldom equalled.
Then the rills of bright, sparkling leaping wa
ter, which, diverted from the streams issuing
from several adjacent mountain canons, flow
through each street, and are conducted at will
into every garden, diffuse an air Of freshness
and GOODNESS which none can fail to enjoy, but
which only a traveller in summer across the
Plains, can fully appreciate. On single bust
ness street. the post office, principal stores, &C
| are set pretty near each other though not SO
close as in other cities everywhere else, be-
lieve, the original plan of the city has been
wisely and happily preserved Southwark
from the city, the soil is softer and richer, and
there are farms of II judge) 10 to 40 or 60 acres
but am told that the lower portion of the val
ley, nearly ON level with the lake, is SO i'm
pregnated with salt, soda, &C., as to yield but q
grudging return for the husbandman's labor
believe, however, that even this region is
available as a acknowledgements on thou
sands of cattle, mainly owned in the city, being
pastured here in winter as well as summer
and said to do well in all seasons. For, though
snow is never absent from the mountain chain:
which shut in this valley it seldom lies long
in the valley itself
The pass over the Wahsatch is, if / mistake
not, 5000 feet above the sea level this valley
is about 1900. The atmosphere is so pure
that the mountains across the valley to thu
south seem but ten or fifteen miles off; they
are really from twenty to thirty. The lake il
some twenty miles westward; but we see only
the rugged mountain known as "Antelope Is