The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-09-15
ONCE MORE REVIVED.
THE STORY OF ALASKA's PHAN-
TOM CITY.
Was 1t the Salt Lake Temple Seen
Towering Above the Other
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of the ChiIcats.

Some one revives every few years the
legend of the Silent City, seen as a mir
age over the Muir glacier, in Glacier
Bay, Alaska, $50 miles above juneau.
What processes to be a photo-engraving
of the city with affidavit attached was
published and sold Some wears ago. and
at least half dozen white men profess
10 nave seen the city, while the natives
OF the Alaskan coast cl1ef,1 the tradi-
Ion OF its existence. lie mirage Is us
ually visible at about this time of wear.
One man declares that he saw it only
on July 0, 1889, and two others, it is de-
clared, have made affidavit that they
saw 1t three days before that date. John
NJ White, Virginian, VINO, after ten
or fifteen years spent III Various parts
or the west has settled down in Phila-
delph-A. soiemnly declares that he saw
Il I1,, on June q, some years ago. Mr.
Wnlte account of the phenomenon is
c'rcGmstantial in the highest degree and
ne joins 1t to a theory as to what the
city is AND where it lies. He declares
that he stuffed the mirage for nine hours
through powerful glass on the side of
the city is walled, that its houses are
battlemented, and the chimneys sur
mounted by the sculptured figure of an
1nd:an IN full heaGuTess and feathers.
I HIS glass revealed to him Some of the in
habitants. men in knee brooches and
Jackets. The only beast visible was
/ donkey-like creature, with body as
large as that of a horse. The mirage
! appeared at first about 11:30 q. m, as a
/ mist. and out of this rose the towers and
/ battlements of the city, as did those of
ancient Troy. by noon the city was as
| clearly defined as New York is from
| Jersey heights.
| Mr.. White rejects the various guesses
that the phantom city is Antwerp, Mon
/ treal. or Salt Lake city. It's architec-
ture is unlike that of any other city he
hot 5nI offV hn &c
certain, from the fact that ne has seen
three photographs taken of the mirage.
| one of which shows a tower rising amid
the houses, and d later one the same
| tower finished He believes that it is a
| mirage of a city at the north pole, on
! the edge of the traditional open polar
sea. He believes that when the sun is
/ at its highest northern point, as it is on
! June 21st. the mirage of the Arctic me-
| troDolis is reflected to the point where
/ it. appears over the Muir glacier The
legends of the Chilcats of Alaska sup
/ port this theory. They say that manv
| generations ago. when Alaska was a
warm ana densely peopled country. there
came from the north. through the ice
barrier. p cavage people, fully armed.
! who lad waste to the region and put
I its Inhabitants to the sword. These saw
! age warriors he believes to have been
! the ancestors of the American Indians.
| and he Is convinced that in coming
! through the ice barrier they left behind
I a warm region about the pole, where
the remnant of their people continued
to develop. and 2 length bu.lt the me
tropolis seen on g. Jonn'S day in mirage
above Muir glacier. The pictures pur-
porting to have been made from photo
| graphic neCatives of Tie mirage repre-
sent an ordinary. modern city, without
walls @" battlenfants but with spacious.
comfortable looking houses. surmounted
with broad chimneys and interspersed
! with trees. In fact. they look like pho
tographs of wash drawings made by an
artist that was not too careful to follow
the details of the legend.