Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1896-08-14
BATHING IN SALT LAKE.

It may seem prepOSIerouS 10 lalh ol
the finest sea bathing on earth thou
sand miles from the ocean, but truth is
no less truth because it appears
absurd. The sea bathing in Great
Salt Lake infinitely surpasses any
thing of the kind on either the
Atlantic or Pacific coast. The wa
ter contains many times more salt and
much more soda, sulphur, magnesia,
chlorine, bromine and potassium than
any ocean water on the globe. 1t is
powerful in medicinal virtues, curing
or benetiting many forms of rheuma-
tism, rheumatic gout, dyspepsia, ner-
vous disorders, and cutaneous diseases,
and it acts like magic On the hair Of
those unfortunates whose tendencies
are to bald.headedness. 1t is prompt
and potent tonic and invigorant of the
body and mind, and then there is no
end of fun in getting acquainted with
its peculiarities.
A first bath in it is always as good as
circus, the bath being his or her own
trick mule The specific gravity is but
trife less than that of the Holy Land
Dead Sea, the actual figures with dis
titled water as unity being. for the
ocean, 1.027; for Salt Lake, 1107, and
for the Dead Sea, 1116. The human
body will not and cannot sink.
You can walk out in it where it
is fifty feet deep and your body
will stick up out OF it like fishing cork
from the shoulders upward. You can
sit down in it perfectly secure where it
is fathoms deep. Men lie on top Of it
with their arms crossed under their
heads and smoke cigars. Its buoyancy
is indescribable and unimaginable.
Any one can float upon it at the first
trial; there is nothing to do but to lie
down gently upon it-and float. But
swimming is an entirely different mat
ter. The moment you begin to paddle
your own canoe" lively and-to the
lockers -on-mirth-grovoking exercises
ensue.
When you stick your hands under to
make stroke, your feet decline to stay
anywhere but on top; and when, after
an exciting tussle with your refractory
pedal extremities, you again get them
beneath the surface, your hands fly out
with the splash and sputter OF half
dozen Hutter wheels. If, on account Of
your brains being heavier than your
heels, you chance to turn somersault
and your head goes under, your heels
will pop up like pair of risky didsp
per ducks. You cannot keep more than
one end of yourself under the water at
once, but you soon learn how to wrestle
with lis novelties, and then it becomes
"a thing of beauty and JOY for" any
summer day.
The water is delightful to the skin,
every sensation is exhilarating, and one
cannot help feeling in it like gilded
cork adrift in q jewel-rimmed bowl of
champagne punch. In the sense Of
luxurious ease with which it envelops
the bathrr it is unrivalled on earth.
The only approximation to it is in the
phosphorescent waters of the Mosquito
Indian coast The water does not
freeze until the mercury tumbles down
to eighteen degrees above zero, or four
teen degrees below the ordinary freez-
ing point. 1t is as clear as crystal, with
bottom of white sand, and small
objects can be distinctly seen at depth
OF twenty feet. There is not fish or
any other living thing in all the $500
| or 5000 square miles Of beautiful and
mysterious waters, except the yearly
increasing swarms of summer bathers.
Not shark or stingaree to scare the
timid swimmer or tloater, not crab or
a crawlish to nip the toe of the nervous
wader, not minnow or frog, tad
pole or pollywog nothing that lives,
moves, swims, crawls, or wiggles. 1t
is the ideal sea-bathing place of the
| world.