Year: 1876



 A correspondent of the San Francisco Alta, writing from Prescott, Arizona, gives the following description of the wonderful salt formations on the Virgin river. in Nevada Stones ferry is about six hundred and fifty miles above the mouth of the Colorado, having an alti- tude of 1,250 feet above tide water. The river at this point is $50 feet wide, and has generally swift running cur rent of from four to six miles per hour. Virgin river, which rises in tho noun. tains of Nevada over one hundred miles to the north, enters the Colorado short mile above Stones ferry. At low water it is swift running stream of over fifty feet in width, with an average depth of about one foot. The salt formations are, in fact, mountains of salt, and ex. tend for thirty miles or more up the Virgin river, and the Muddy, one of its branches. It was discovered scme some twelve or fifteen years since by the Mormons, who built up several very fourishing colonies in tho valleys of Virgin and Muddy, put out fine orchards and vineyards, and brought large tracts of land under successful cultivation. For reasons unknown to me they were recalled to Utah some years since by their Prophet Brigham, leaving their fields and Improvements, or selling them for what they could get. During their stay they worked the salt mines to some extent, and supplied the country for long distances with what was needed. Since that time the mines have been worked at intervals by differ ent parties. The different openings made are in the face of the mountain bluffs which run down from the north and south ranges of noun tains both on the east and west side of the river. The first one visited by me was about six miles up the Virgin river from Stones ferry, and about one-half of 8 mile to the east. The second one is seven miles up the river, and one-fourth of a mile east. The surface of this and the other salt bluffs and mountains is covered with @ dark, orange colored clay and earth, in which are strewn large quanti- ties of impure mica. This clay and earth is Some two feet deep, and under heath this is from two to four feet of impure sedimentary granite, and then, at depth of from three to six feet from the surface, the salt is found in a solid and compact form. It is mined by blasting in the same manner as granite or other stone would be. Five miles further up, or twelve miles from the ferry, is another opening of similar character to the two first. The salt from the three mines mentioned is of a dark gray color, somewhat resembling granite, and is ninety-two per cent. pure. Small veins, from two to six inches wide, of pure crystallized salt, are met with every few feet in these formations. At point twenty one miles from the ferry is larger mountain than the others, and this is all pure, clear and transparent. laid block of it one foot thick over copy of the Alta, and could as easily read through it as through small body of the purest glass. In extent and purity. these mountains of salt equal, if they do ex- eel, any in the world. After an exami. nation of the salt mountains I returned to the ferry, where I was hospitably en. tertained by MT. Emery. On the fol. lowing day Mir. Emery took me to a natural salt we'll, which is short mile from the ferry, in northwest direction. A stretch of mesa land, about one hun dred feet above the Colorado river, runs off to the north and west for some miles, and on this mesa, about half way be- tween the river and the base of the black volcanic mountains to the northwest, is this wonderful salt we'll. The we'll is 6 circular opening in the mesa, about seventy-five feet in diameter, the sur face of the water being fifty feet below the surface of the mesa. The banks are abrupt, and almost perpendicular, ex' cept at one point on the south, where the rains have washed down the banks to slope sufficient to permit approach to the water. The water is so salt that a person bathing in it will float upon its surface iKe cork upon common water The full depth of the water in the vel is unknown, but line has been sunk 139 feet without touching bottom. The evidences are that here, in the remote past, was great salt lake, which in the lapse of time has been filled in by wash ings from the mountains and river until all that is left of it's former greatness is this well of salt water so briefly de scribed.