Omaha daily bee., 1899-12-22
OUR SALT
Countless Tons in the Bed and water
of Great Salt Lake.

w" iOlh pNll
The level Of Great Salt lake is steadily
falling on account of the large volume of
water tributary to it which is now absorbed
by irrigation enterprises. The Jordan and
Bear rivers, City Creek and other streams
that flow into the lake rise in the high
mountains to the east and the average
volume Of water they poured into the lake
the year round before they were intercepted
by irrigation bitches was about 5000 cubic
feet a second. This is a considerable guam
tity Of water, but the evaporation from the
surface of the lake is very large, and the
diminution in the supply has of course re-
suited in lowering the lake level. Great Salt
lake today is not receiving as much water
as it evaporates and, if the process goes on,
the time is not far distant when the lake
will disappear, leaving only a bed Of dry
salt. The streams flowing into the lake are
clear and limpid, and only chemical analysis
reveal the presence Of the salts they con-
tain.
The disappearance of the lake would take
from the neighborhCod of Salt Lake City
one OF its chief attractions, but would
make easily accessible one of the greatest
sources Of salt in the world. Mr.. Gilbert
has estimated that it required at least 5000
years to charge Great Salt lake with the
common salt it now contains. Some very
wild guesses have been made as TO the
quantity of sodium chloride or common salt
held by the lake. One writer, for example,
has estimated this year that the quantity of
salt is nearly nine billion tons and that 1t
would take a freight train carrying all this
salt and running at the rate of twenty miles
an hour day and night, .twenty-eight
years, five months and twenty-three days to
pass a station. The writer's bent for figures
will prove his undoing If he gives it full
swing. 1t is better to accept the more con-
servative calculations of scientific men, who
estimate that the waters hold about 400, OOO,-
900 tons of common salt. Accepting this cs-
innate as approximately accurate every other
source OF salt pales in comparison with the
riches Great Salt lake will offer II its waters
disappear, leaving the mineral more easily
and cheaply accessible, as II Will be, than In
any other salt mines or evaporation grounds
OF the world.
The United States produced last year
., 45O, 900 tons of salt. II all the saltmakers
Of the country should go to the d~ried-up
bed OF Great Salt lake It would take them,
at last years rate of production, more than
1863 years to exhaust the supply. The great
salt centers OF New York, Michigan and
Kansas might be held as a reserve for the
sixth or seventh generation to come, The
greatest rock salt mines in the world are at
salzburg, Bochnia and Wieliezka in Austro-
Hungary, where, by immuring miners deep
IN the earth, they jointly pr~iuce an average
Of 500 900 tons a year, II they should be
transferred to Great Salt lake they might
toll in the pure air of the upper world, enjoy
sunshine Instead Of electric lights and need
not worry over the permanency Of the job
for to their present rate OF production more
than 1883 years would elapse before they
scraped up the last salt in the bed Of tho
lake. Perhaps the interests of agriculture
require that we lose the water, but the salt
will remain with us and It is a bigger
bonanza than any the Klondike OF Cape
Nome have TO show.