The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1903-09-18
KIMBALL SOUTH DAKOTA, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER l8. 1903
GREAT SALT LAKE

ALT LAKE !!
with a young man who places them in
big envelope, on which you write
your name-and then you hike for the
Office at the head Of the bath rooms
and draw a suit ana towels and a key
to bath room. The man who hands
out the suits is usually an expert and
he sizes you up at a glance and is sup
posed to give you rigging that will
| fit your noble form, but sometimes he
misses it a little and you may do some
sweating and grunting before you sue
ceed in crawling in the blamed thing.
After you have walked a mile or two
! finding your bathroom or closet and
disrobed and donned the flannel, like
as not you walk another mile getting
to the end of the pier and down in the
water-which, atSalt Lake, is only
about six inches deep. You have to
wade out thousand feet or more be-
fore the water is deep enough to wet
your body, and as much farther before
you can fine swimming depth; and
before you have got to where it is up
to your arm pits you are Of mind
that there are much easier and shorter
routes to suicide than via Salt Lake.
But, oh, the exhiIaration of it! The
water seems blood heat; as delightful
as the finest mineral swimming pool;
God made-not man-made, and all
about you hundreds upon hundreds OF
people of both sexes-old and young
rich and poor some celebrated on two
continents-others known but to their
own neighborhood, perhaps-but all
Laughing and talking and mingling in
the same waters with a cospolltan-
ism seen nowhere else in the world.
They have rigged a donkey engine
on raft and by an endless cable at
tached to an anchor out in the lake
thousand feet or more a raft is hauled
back and forth, on which you can ride
out where the water is of sufficient
depth for good dip without so much
walking. I sat next to an old lady, at
least eigthY-tiye years old, without a
tooth In her head. She slipped off
and we had y deuce OF a time hauling
her back on-but how she was enjoy
Ing the fun. That little wife of mine,
meanwhile, was out near the shore
line standing in a foot Of water and
screaming afraid she'd drown.
The ocean water is bad enough
when ou get dose of it inwardly or
in your eyes, but it ism t a comparison
with the brine OF Salt Lake. A little
Of 1t in ones eyes is worse than so
much soft soap, and the worst part Of
it is, you can't rub your eyes, for your
hands and entire body is encrusted
with salt scales which can only be re-
moved under shower bath of fresh
water-which every bath room is pro-
vided with. People come out Of the
lake so thickly covered with pure salt
that they look for all the world as ii
they had been rolled in it. Fifteen
minutes to half hour is usually long
enough to remain in ocean water or
while bathing in the Great Lakes,
: but here at Salt Lakeland in the
/ mineral swimming pools all over the
+ west for that matter-itis no uncom.
| mon sight to find delicate persons re.
! naming in the water for hours with
| no bad effects.
S The bottom Of Salt Lake is of the
purest white sand-without a stone
weed, bit of grass, or any liv
i ing thing in the vegetable or anima
e kingdom. The water is as soft to the
), touch and body as the purest spring
: water, warmed to blood heat and very
s clear. AS you bath in it it seems i'm
possible to realize that it is SO stron,
|. in brine that the human body will no
j. sink.
J. In recent geological times whel
) the lake covered most Of Utah, it hat
" it's outlet in the Columbia river. Th
No. water then was fresh and covered
e $4,000 square miles of territory. Nov
e it covers but little more than 200
u miles. An examination Of the govern
d ment records during the last fort
" years shows that if the lake continue
A to recede at its present rate that i
% will practically disappear in twenty
n five years. The recession has bee
Is most marked since 1900. This is sal
IL to be due to irrigation. The theory
it held by many Salt Lake city people
of that the lake would again be raised
IS it's former level by a cycle Of we
NJ years has been abandoned. The lax
n is doomed befure the march OF civil
IS zation. i said to a Salt Lake cit
a man that | had always wanted to Sc
ot Salt Lake and take a swim in it; itha
,it was the only thing which brough