The Opelousas courier., 1900-03-31
OUR SALT
An Alluring Prospect When tie Great
Salt Lake Disappears.

An Alluring Prospect When tle Great
Salt Lake Disappears.
The level of Great Salt Lake is
steadily falling ON account of the large
volume of water tributary to it which
is absorbed by irrigation enter
prises. The Jordan aud 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 10, 900 cubic feet a second. This
is a considerable quantity of water,
but the evaporation from the surface
of the lake is very large, and the
diminution in the supply has of course
resulted in lowering the lake level.
Great Salt Lake today is not receiv-
ing as much water as it evar crates,
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
CIlElllChf UudtyS Co kCfCol LAS RtSSC4bSS
OF the salts they contain.
The disappearance of the lake
would take from the neilhborhood of
Salt Lake City one of its chief attrac-
tons but would make easily accessible
one of the greatest sources Of salt in
the world. Mr.. Gilbert has estimated
that it required at least %, 900 years
to change 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 9, 900, 600. 600 tons and that it
would take a freight train carrying all
this salt and running at the rate of
90 miles an hour day and night, %
years, five months and 23 days to pass
q station. This writer's bent for
| figures will prove his undoiug if he
gives it full swing. It is better to
accept the more conservative caleula-
tions of sciensifc men, who estimate
that the waters hold about 400, 0G0, :
900 tons of common salt. Accepting
this estimate as approximately ac-
curate every other source of GfAls pales
in comparison with the ricIes Great
Salt Lake will offer if its1&s3ers dis
appear, leaving the LnsIDeal more
easily and cheaply accessible, as it
will be, than in any other salt mines
or evaporation grounds of the world.
The United States produced in 1898
2, 400, coo tons of salt. If all the salt
makers of the country should go to
ss:e dried-up bed of Great Salt Lake
it would take them, at the rate OF pro-
duction, more than 1853 years
to exhaust the supply. The great
salt centres of New York, Michigan
and Kansas might be held as q reserve
for the sixth and seventh generation
to come. The greatest rock salt mines
in the world are ct Salzburg, Bochnia
and Wieliczka in Austria-H Hungary,
where by immuring miners deepin the
earth, they jointly produce an average
of 800, 600 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
at their present rate Of production
more than 1888 years would elapse
before they scraped up the last salt in
the led of the lake. Perhaps the in
terests of agriculture require that we
lose the water, but the salt will re-
main with us and it is q bigger bon
ANA than any the sKlondike or Cape
Nome have to show.