Year: 1869




Crowdins tho Mormons-A Subject for the


Special Atfentien OF General Grant.


The Gentiles are crowding hard upon the
Mormons. The iron horse Of the Pacific Rail-
road from Omaha, on the Missouri, has reached
the Great Salt Lake station, one thousand
miles westward, on the east side of the lake,
some twelve miles north Of Great Salt Lake
City-the city Of Zion or the New Jerusalem
of the Latter Day Saints. The road from said
station winds round the north end of the lake
for passage westward, the city at the south
end thus escaping the immediate dangers of q
direct contact with the enormous through pas
senger traffic of the great continental line.
Within month or two the junction of the road
from Omaha west and the road from San
Francisco east will be made, and then the tide
Of emigration from the East and the West into
the new mining mountain States and Terrific
ries tapped by the locomotive will be marvel
lous and overwhelming. What, then, will
become of the Mormons? This is the text we
have chosen for the Sabbath days opening
discourse to our readers.


We half suspect that Brigham Young, q
religious potentate with more money in the
bank than the Pope, has had a voice in the
diversion of the Pacific Railroad round the
north end of Great Salt Lake, leaving his chosen
city at the nearest point twelve difficult miles of
mountain and morass to the southwark. Thus
the great stream Of the Gentiles passing east
and west by the railway, instead Of hating in
town Gas they would do with the road going
through it) to inspect the outside walls and
doors and gates Of the Prophets harem, and
to look around for some pretext for quarrels
and fights with the saints generally, will be
compelled to pass on. But the railway station
at the lake Is doubtless by this time bustling
pioneer city Of grocers' tents, grog shanties,
dancing sheds and gambling booths, and within
few months this halfway station among the
mountains may have q larger population than
Salt Lake City ITSELF What then? The fringe
OF border rufhanism. which may be compared
TO the rubbish along the surf line of the sea
coast-the advancing overland front Of Anglo
American civilization-will be diffused along
the line Of the Pacific road in the mining re-
gions. Then, as these rough and warlike ele-
ments proceed TO the work Of settling down for
life, as the more substantial materials OF
society begin to gather about them, building
up cities and developing mines and farming
lands, then will the Irresistible conflict" be-
tween Gentiles and Mormons begin.


All those vast regions Of the West between
the Rocky Mountains and the great chain
fanking the Pacific coast are mostly desert in
their character. Fremont's Great Basin, Of five
or six hundred miles square, has that system
OF drainage peculiar TO all those regions II
both hemispheres, cut of from the ocean by
encircling mountains, or desert wastes, or BY
both-that system where we find the rivers
sinking In the sands or emptying into inland
lakes which are kept down by evaporation. II
all such regions the arabic lands are confined
to the borders OF the streams and 10 lttl'
green patches in the desert, and even these
arabic lands require more or less Of artifcia
irrigation. SO II Is in Utah, where all the
lands we may say, susceptible OF cultivation
are held by the Mormons, with the Iife-givins
streams from the mountains. But apart from
these lands the surrounding mountains and
| even the deserts abound in their precious min
erals Of silver and gold, coal, iron and salt
With the completion Of this Pacific road III
| Geniiles will swarm into these deposits. crowd