The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-10-24

Depletion of Its Fresh Water Feed
ers-The Record Of Its Decline in
Past Centuries Clearly Craven on
It's Mountainous Shores.
From the Chicago Tribune.
Before anotheA. century nears its
end, the Great Salt Lake, the myster-
ious, tideless inland sea Graded 1000
feet above the level of oceans. may
have disappeared into air. For three
decades its shore line steadily has been
contracting. its depth continually
growing less, until today it's ultimate
destiny is written so legibly that none
deny the approach. The declaration
that the waters are being waited into
the atmosphere is no figure Of speech.
Evaporation is the foe which i'm certain
course of time, under prevailing condl-
tions, is gong to transform the vast
expanse of water into a huge SAT-
plain.
Ages ago, thousands of years. the
biologists say, the Great salt Lake,
then "A sea covering the greater part,
possibly the whole, of the great basin,
DeBan TO SuDSlue' Dll StIdHSClN thpuSh
the agency which now is Fastening its
disappearance, is distinctly of human
origin. OF more astonishing purport
still the Mormons, who made the valley
of the Jordan widen from a narrow
strip of green to miles on miles OF
fields, of uneXceled fertility. are them
selves the people who have sacrificed
the lake. That they may exist. that
81,
they deliberately are cutting off the
source of fresh water supply of the
mountain sea Stagnant and helpless
the lake is coming to lie at the COM
plete mercy of a pitiless sun.
Not Fed by Brings.
40, many years ago geographers and
descriptive writers took fancy to eX-
pressing a belief that the Great Salt
Lake was fed not alone by the four
rivers which empty into it, but by hid
den springs at it's bottom. AS long as
no one took the trouble to question the
assertions, they We're accepted as facts
and By many persons are still credited.
If there We're springs at intervals along
the bed of the lake it would not matter
so much whether the rivers continued
TO pour their contents into the basin,
but no springs exist They were called
into the pages of text books and into
the accounts of travellers TO explain
why the lake is so exceptionally salt.
1t sounded much better to say that
nature by one of it's freaks. had opened
up the crust of the earth at this point
and sent volumes of briny water bub-
bling forth, something after the style
,,F nd s,t1f n
to make the simple statement that the
saltness, as with the ocean, was due
TO the process of evaporation on a body
of water lacking a drainage outlet, and
that it's excess was the consequence of
altitude. Plainly enough. if the in
flowing water be diverted to other uses
before it reaches the lake, there will
come q day when the salt deposit,
which is the result of the long warfare
between sun and water, will stand ex-
posed, its blanket gone
The Mormons. more. perhaps, than
any class of settlers in the arid dis
tricts of North America, have mastered
the science of irrigation. They have
been studying and experimenting for
over half a century. Unfortunately
for the Great Salt Lake. the lessons in
ftOIOlly III lut uSdSt VI lllISdllbI
Iivulets have not served to keep pace
with the increase in population and the
consequent necessity Of the continued
reclamation of arid land
Rapid Evaporation.
The Great Salt Lake is 4,200 feet
above sea level. At this altitude the
evaporation is something enormous
even with fresh water, while the ac-
tion of the salt increases the dissolu.
tion a hundred fold. If water could be
preserved, once it has been directed tC
a reservoir, Great Salt Lake might
hold it's eXpanse of 1S70-then 2,36(
square miles-for unnumbered yearStt
come. Yet its eventual fate would be
unchanged, for 1t is deCreed that the
great Salt Lake is not to endure upor
the face of the earth. On the noun.
tains which rise from it's shores it has
written the story of its fall of 1,00t
feet, Although it is given to no one tC
know the number of centuries which
have witnessed the dwarfng process
the fact itself has been made so plar
that he who Eazes may be enlightened
The successive steps of the descent
from ipaCG IN pat lpN-li,