The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1909-10-23
ENJOY A TRIP
TO WONDERLAND
City Officials and Prominent
Citizens Guests of Western
Pacific Railroad.
SEE GREAT WHITE EMPIRE
PRESIDENTS. REPRESENTATIV
INsUREs COMFORT OF ALL.

Salt Lake was without a city admin
istration yesterday The Western Pacific
had kidnapped in a kindly way, all of
the officials who did not miss the train,
and conveyed them, amid palatial sur
rOundings, through wonderland which
lies at the very western gates of the city.
And then. turning about after having ira
Yersed l21 miles constantly punctuated
with ordinations of admiration at the
marvellous views. brought them back 10
their own roof trees safe and sound at
Nne rate of. on one stretch of track. TWEEN
ity-four miles in twenty-siN minutes.
When Engineer J. p Clarke pulled open
THE throttle of that new compound, No.
10. yesterday morning, at the Denver &
kItio Grande depot, four PUllmans, a bag
gage coach and a diner We're tackled on
behind. 1t represented the special inspec-
zion train TO whose velvet cushions had
been beer, invited the city fathers by
I Western Pacific for "a nice little
1unketug trip to the Utah-Nevada
Estate line. The dining ear had been
Drought from Denver. distance Of 800
miles. expressly Tor this trip
. over steel tuned to "a symphony of per
tfect alignment the train bOWled merriiy
Ealong, across the Jordan into the land
iof mystery, the land of enchantment, the
n6nd OF prJdigiOus promise. out of civil
uizatlOn into the country of nowhere the
leap was taken after crossing a long reach
Iof the Great Salt lake and its waterless
Z
l1essly curling trail through the scat
TERED buttes of the Oquirrhs and topped
,Jhe low divide which for unknown ages
thas arrayed its rocky regions against the
torslaught of the Valley of the Skulls.
Interminable waste is here, to the south.
ITO the north. with the twin steel thread
piercing its Vitals TO the west. Here and
Hhere are clustered lonely punches of sage
fbrush, but even these disappear as the
lmiles slip by and the alkaline COnsttU-
cents Of the soil become greater. Away
ITO the south ana the Forth mesas rise
ITO the foothills. and fC 0thillS TO grim
mountains in the distance. And on these
lmesas and on these hills during the win
Fter season 100000 sheep Craze. But they
ldo not come down to the far stretching
tplain, for this is the inception of the
sGreat American desert.
Footprints on Sands.
Even the steel monster at the head
of the train painted from thirst and "a
Telegraph poles which stretch their lonely
Bengths into the far distance were noted
1.-THE tracks IF men. There was human
khabitaUion here. But the construction en-
sSIneer who built this stretch Of track
hsays that those footprints We're made by
1.-THE men who constructed the line three
years ago. Those laDorers had literally
lleft footprints on the sands Of time
More and more did the sense of desc
jlation grow. Farther and farther away
tthe mesas and foothills rereated, until
ithey faded into the horizon line. And
then the atmosphere took on subtle
change. There was a perCeptible salt
tang in the air, while here and there APP
'peared on the vast plain Clustering patches
OF white. And then all at once the soil
disappeared Nothing but white was now
seen, sCintllatTg i'm its brillianCy, here
and there as the train rushed by.
1t was one vast deposit OF solid salt,
collected i'm this great valley through vast
ages, and fed, slacier-lilSe, by eternal
springs in the foothills of the Deep Creek
region far 20 the south. 1t is the great
est deposit of salt i'm the world, cOmDris-
ing about 800 square miles of area, with
a depth varying from to Is feet. A
mathematician yesterday roughly esti-
mated that there was enough salt in this
one great lake to give every inhabitant
of the earth ten pounds and then have
considerable left
Lake Bonneville. as it is called, has a
vast underlying saline soil. The springs
from the surrounding mountains pour
their waters into its depths. where they
crystallize as the salt glace rises and
loses some of its topping through the ac-
TiCn of the elements. There Is scum,
as of light Snow. on the surface. but be-
low this the salt is of beautifully clear
crystals, systematically laid on i'm plain
layers, with only a very small percent
age of mpuriJy. I'm the warmth of the
day the foot quickly cooled when placed
upon 10. because of evaporation and q
rapid attcr-freeze.
Lana OF InS Mlfa9G-
It is the land of the mirage. Placid
lakes appear here and there along its
surface. only to disappear through the
stimulus of a fresh breeze. The Deep
Greek mountains, apparently but a short
distance away, recedc 20 nifty miles when
The transit is used, They are capped by
snOw-COVeTed Mt. lbapah. rearing a frosty
head nearly 1900 feet into the heavens.
ITO the north and fifteen miles distant
the Silver Island range make their long
trend. IL is here that Harry and J. ".
lShipleT took a panoramic photograph of
the train and the guests. 1t viii be eight
feet ina length when completed
In the near future. when the Western
Pacific viii have completed its iron link
10 the waters Of the Pacific. Lake Bon
neville will become mentioned in the same
breath with Yellowstone park, with the
Yosemite. and with the Grand Canyon of
the Colorado as one of the great wonders
of the North American continent. 1t will
mean ineNhaustible wealth to The Univer-
sity of Utah should that institution re-
ceive a favorable decision from the su-
preme court
The Western Pacific runs through 10
vast deposit for "a distance of nearly ten
miles. Mi iWay a depot has been placed
and named Salduro Its translation is
the engineering department of the new
J DAD encountered its greatest difficulty.
Teams could not work over it. Plank
were laid and the tracks We're
ballasted from the cars.
The train passed from the area Of salt
a few miles from the town of WendOver,
100 miles from Salt Lake and thirty Yards
from the Nevada state line. WendGver. /
which is a Druid word meaning "over
the wastes" has a round house q water
tank, coal chutes, and sixty inhabitants.
The Western Pacific spent $127000 on a
pipe line which brings effervescent water I
from a distance Of tweEty-seVen miles /
And If is from here that water is hauled
TO the cations throughout the Great