The morning news., 1899-01-28
UTAH's GREAT SALT LAKE.
The Most Marvellous sheet of Water
in the World.

in the World.
Col p. Donan in Salt Lake Reporter.
The most wonderful feature of all this
wonderful land, the mightest marvel of
all marvellous Utah, an ocean of majestic
mystery clad in beauty divine, is Great
Salt Lake the American Dead sea. Among
all earth's wierd wonders in water it has
but one rival or peer-the miracle-made
sea whose waves of doom and oblivion
roll over Sodom and Gomorrah, the Chi
Cages of forty centuries ago. Think of
lake from $500 to 5000 square miles in
area, lying a thousand miles inland, al
an altitude of 1850 1eet above the sea
level whose waters are six times as salt
as those of the ocean; and while it has
no outlet, four large rivers pouring their
ceaseless floods of fresh water into il
without raising its mysterious surface
fraction Of an inch or ever diminiShing,
so far as chemical analysis can deter
mire, its indescribable sadness. Where
does all the water go? Where does all
the salt, that no streams can freshen.
come from? Where are the vast saline
magazines from which il draws its ever
lasting supplies? One may stand upon
its shores and ask a thousand such ques-
tions. but no answer comes from it's mys-
terious depths, in which nothing lives but
death and silence
Salt lake was once as large as Lake
Huron, and was over a thousand feet
deep. It's former benches and the marks
of its olden wave plashngs are as PLAIN
upon the mountain benches as though
traced but yesterday. IL Is now about
hundred miles long, with an average width
of from Is to 80 miles. 1t is from so to
60 miles wide an some places and its great
est depth is about 50 feet. It's waters con-
tain is per cent. of solid matter, mostly
salt and soda, with small proportions Of
sulphur magnesia, calcium, bromide, po-
tassium, htthia and boracic acid. The
Asatic Dead sea water contains % per
cent. of solids. including less salt and
soda, and much more magnesia, calcium
| and potassium than Salt lake. Atlantic
ocean water holds but S.5 per cent. of
| solid material of which salt constitutes
| 36 per cent. Hundreds of thousands of
| tons of salt are made by natural evapora-
ton along the shores of the lake, and at
one place near Salt Lake City windy
night never fails to pile up many tons
of soda, eliminated by the movement OF
| the waves
Compared with this vast liquid treasure
house of riches, the greatest bonanza
mines of Utah or of the United States
| dwindle to beggars penny boxes. Take
| out your pencil and do a little figuring.
| Figures, it is said, will not lie, and you
| will soon find yourself standing dumb
| founded before your own mathematical
| truths.
| Say Salt lake is 100 miles long and has
| an average width of q miles; that gives
an area of 2700 square miles. There are
| 27S78 400 square feet in a mile; so the lake
| has an area of 75,871, $3.50, 600 square feet.
| Take 20 feet as its average depth; then 20
times 74,271, 600 will give us 1,505,4SS =
| 100000 cubic feet as the contents of the
| lake. Now 16 2-S per cent. or one-sixth of
| this, according to the analysis of eminent
| chemists, is salt and sulphate of soda.
That is the lake contains 250,905, 800 600
cubic feet of salt and sulphate of soda
| OF this mass one-eighth is sulphate of so
1 da, and seven-eighths common salt. A Gu
! bic foot of sulphate of soda weighs 80
pounds, and a cubic foot of common salt
| 80 pounds; so we have, as the coSfents, in
! part, of this unparalleled reservoir of
wealth, 1858, $50 COO pounds or 84,0S0,- .
OC0 tons of su1phate of soda, and 1850
339 100000 pounds, or S,7s9 169, 600 tons of
salt. Allowing 10 tons to a carload that
would be 600 cars of soda, and $751;
! O1696O cars of salt.
| The whole lake is dotted with magnifi-
! Gently picturesque mountainous islands or
| islandous mountaines, rising out of the
| bue-green water to a hight of from 5000
! TO 5000 feet. The principal of these wave
J washed mountain beauty spot are Ante
! lope, Stansbury, Fremont, Darlington
: Gunnison, Dolphin, Mud, Egg. and Hat
Islands. Antelope Island, the largest Of
them all, is sixteen miles long and five
wide, and lies in plain view of Salt Lake
/ City. 1t towers to an altitude of about
! 4.0O0 feet above the surface of the lake
! and abounds in exquisite scenery. Streams
, of pure sweet water tumble down its
! mountain sides and canyons; rich grasses