Chapter XXXVI: Salt Lake and the Wasatch

Behind, the silent snows; and wide below,
The rounded hills made level, lessening down
To where a river washed with sluggish flow
A many-templed town.
--BAYARD TAYLOR.

One day we all went out to the great Salt Lake, as in duty bound. You might as well go to Mecca and fail to see the tomb of the Prophet, as to visit Deseret and avoid the lake. It is a ride of twenty miles by rail, and the fare for the round trip is only fifty cents. Two trains are run every day in summer, and they are especially well-filled on Sundays. The cars used are chiefly open ones, with seats crosswise, like those run to Brighton and the other Beaches from New York, and it would be good fun in itself to go racing in this free way across the breezy desert between the city and the lake, even if there were not the salt waves at the end of the journey.

For, of course, the only object in going to the lake--or at any rate the prime object--is the bathing. There are two or three landings, all much alike, and not far apart; which one it was we stopped at, I have forgotten, and it doesn't matter. One is called Garfield and another Black Rock, after a great cubic mass of lava that stands out of the water a little way from shore like the end of a huge ruined pier.

Unfortunately it is impossible to make trees grow at the shore. The water and the soil are too bitterly salt; moreover, there is no fresh water in the rocky hills of the Oquirrh that tower straight up from the beach, and irrigation is thus forestalled. In lieu of this, a few wide-verandahed houses and open sheds exist, with several booths made of boughs and evergreens, under which are long tables and benches for the accommodation of those who bring their lunches. Nearly every day you will see these bowers half-filled with picnic parties who have come to spend the day; and there are frequent excursions from the city, where large parties go out in the evening, dance all night and return by a special train in the early morning.

At the edge of the water are rows of dressing closets where the bathing suits are donned and whence you go by stairways directly into the water. No special hours are thought preferable. Men and women go in under a noonday blaze that makes the brain swim on shore, and assert that their bare heads suffer no discomfort. We thought their crania must be harder than ours, however, and postponed our dip till the cool of the evening.

While the danger of sunstroke seems very small--the rarity and purity of the air get the credit for this--the lake is a treacherous place for swimmers. The great density of its waters sustains you so that you float easily, but for the same reason swimming ahead is very tiresome work. Moreover, fatal consequences are likely to ensue if any considerable quantity of the brine is swallowed. It not only chokes, but is described as fairly burning the tissues of the throat and lungs, producing death almost as surely as the inhalation of flame. Of course this occurs in exceptional cases only, but many persons suffer extremely from a single accidental swallow. I remind the Madame of this as I lead her rather timid feet down the steps, and add that most of the sufferers hitherto have been women.

"That's because they can't keep their mouths shut even on pain of death," remarks Chum, with malice aforethought. For this remark, some day, I have no doubt, he will be called to account, by my wife, who seems more worried at present, however, to keep the brine out of her hair than out of her mouth.

The powerful effect of this water is not surprising when one remembers that the proportion of saline matter--about twenty per cent.--in it is six times as great as the percentage of the ocean, and almost equal to that of the Dead Sea, though Lake Oroomiah, in Persia, is reputed to contain water of a third greater density yet. This density is due mainly to common salt held in solution, but there are various other ingredients. In Great Salt Lake, for example, only 0.52 per cent. of magnesia exists, the Dead Sea having 7.82 per cent.; of lime, Salt Lake holds 1.80 per cent., while the Dead Sea contains only a third as much. As you look into it the water seems marvelously transparent, so that the ripple-marked sand and pebbles at the bottom show with strange distinctness. This is usually adduced as an evidence of its purity, and in one sense it is so; but it is also the result of its density, since the invisible particles of salt in it, catch and carry the light to far greater depths than it would be able to penetrate in distilled water, which, also, would be perfectly clear. The crystal clearness and intense color of the water of the Mediterranean is noticed by all travellers; but it is also the fact that the Mediterranean is considerably salter than the open Atlantic.

Great flocks of gulls and pelicans inhabit the upper part of the lake and breed upon the shores and islands; what they all find to eat is a mystery. No vegetation can survive where the spray of these bitter waves has dashed, save a miserable little saltwort and a melancholy species of _Artemisia_, whose straggling and thorny limbs appear black and burnt on the scorching sands. Salt is made in great quantities in summer, by the simple process of damming small bays and letting the enclosed water evaporate, leaving a crust of crystallized salt behind. Several thousands of tons are exported annually, and great quantities used at home in chlorodizing silver ores.

I think few persons realize how wonderfully, strangely beautiful this inland, saline sea is. Under the sunlight its wide surface gives the eye such a mass of brilliant color as is rarely seen in the temperate zone. Over against the horizon it is almost black, then ultra marine, then glowing Prussian blue; here, close at hand, variegated with patches of verdigris green and the soft, skyey tone of the turquoise. If the lake were in a plain (remembering the total absence of forest or greensward) doubtless this richness of color would not suffice to produce the effect of beauty, but on every side stand lofty mountains. They seem to rise from the very margin to their riven, bare and pinnacle-studded crests spotted with snow, though some of them are miles beyond the water's edge.

Two mountainous islands stand prominently in view at the lower end of the lake--Church and Antelope. On the former some two thousand head of cattle are pastured. The latter has a less prosaic history, though at present similarly utilized as grazing-land. When the Mormons first came hither they wintered their cattle and horses upon it. The eastern side of the island contains some farming land, and a quarry of roofing slate.

An obliging gentleman told us all about the island, and also gave an account of what must have been an exciting chase. He said that until two or three years ago there roamed upon the island a remnant of the horse-herds once pastured there, numbering fifty or sixty horses and mares. These were as wild as wild could be, and grazed upon the western side of the island, which is very broken and rocky, and traversed by narrow trails that the horses had worn in the hillsides. It was decided to attempt to capture some or all of these horses and a novel method of snaring was adopted. Nooses were made at the ends of long lines which were securely anchored; the nooses were then hung in the bushes in such a way as to overhang the trail at the proper height. Several mounted men then got behind a few of the wild herd, and drove them as furiously as they could frighten them forward along the narrow trails. Overcome with terror the leading animal never saw the dangling rope, but rushed his head through the noose and was instantly jerked off the trail. Tearing wildly past him half a dozen others, one by one went into as many consecutive snares and were caught.

As each horse was caught, one of the pursuers would hasten to him as rapidly as possible, fasten the end of the lariat to the horn of his saddle, and then lose no time in loosening the noose about the captive's neck, which by that time would have choked the poor beast almost into insensibility. This done, he would leave the wild and tame animals tied together, to fight it out, and hurry on to help his companions. In this way several horses were captured, and proved very docile and capable when put in the harness.

The story has scarcely been concluded, when we are called to our homeward-bound train. It is just at sunset--the western horizon a fountain of fiery gold seen through a saffron veil of ineffable splendor. The air seems to become saturated--thick with color throughout the whole space between us and the horizon. The mountains shine through this veil in a sharply defined mass, not a single feature visible, but their whole silhouette washed in with a flat tint of marvelous softness and inimitable delicacy. Yet it changes, almost every instant, and gradually, as the orb disappears behind the island, and the cloth of gold laid down for his feet across the lake, is drawn away, the island-hills and the jagged sierras beyond settle into cold ashy blue, and the coolness of approaching night already fans our cheeks.

* * * * *

Another day we made an excursion up into the cañon of the Little Cottonwood to Alta--a mining town known all round the world. The place is not only entertaining in itself, but in its neighborhood are a large number of easily accessible gorges, lakes and hilltops full of artistic material and of trout fishing; or, if the tourist goes late in the season, of good shooting and ample opportunity for dangerous adventures in mountaineering. The Little Cottonwood is one of those great crevices between the peaks of the Wasatch range plainly visible from Salt Lake City, and distinguished by its white walls, which when wet with the morning dews gleam like monstrous mirrors as the sunlight reaches them from over the top of the range.

We took the early morning train down to Bingham Junction, so called because branch roads diverge here, not only to Alta, our destination, but also to Bingham, a mining camp opposite, in the Oquirrh, which has attracted much attention in the past and still has very profitable mines, with many peculiarities of great interest to the specialist. Here at the Junction stood awaiting us a locomotive heading a train made up of almost every kind of car known to rolling stock. Whisked away past fields of lucerne we were quickly climbing the foothill benches and entering the mouth of the cañon, where the train came to a standstill underneath an ore-shed and alongside of a beer-saloon. In front of the saloon stood on slender rails two or three of the queerest vehicles it was ever my fortune to ride in. If you can imagine the body of a three-seated sleigh, with its curled up splash-board, mounted upon a hand-car and rigged with a miniature "boot" behind, you will have an idea of these vehicles in which we were to finish our trip up the eight miles of cañon remaining. The motive power consisted of two black mules, harnessed tandem, and the driver was the conductor of the train, who disguised himself so effectually in a big hat and bigger duster that it was a long time before we discovered his identity.

The walls of this cañon are extremely lofty, and in places almost vertical. Though in crevices and ledges here and there some fearless bushes and trees have maintained a foothold, yet there are large spaces of almost upright slope, wholly bare of the least soil or vegetation, and smoothed by the waters that drip over them, the sliding avalanches that sweep their faces, and the fierce winds that polish them under streams of sharp-grained dust. Whiter precipices I have never seen, and the rock lies in long layers, that in the case of sedimentary rocks we would call strata, inclined at a very steep angle against the higher heart of the range within. Here, too, are the usual lines of cross-cleavage, and in these lines, as well as between the layers, water finds itself able to penetrate more or less easily. Hence the frost during past ages has slowly cracked off great masses of exposed cliff and hurled them down. This rock does not crumble, as would the lavas, but falls in masses, and with these the bottom of the cañon has been gradually filled up. The water of the creek finding its way over and among the great pieces, never ceases to be a cataract, or has a moment rest from its foaming haste; and our tramway squirmed and dodged among angular fragments, each as big as a house, which had fallen so recently as yet to be lying on top of the ground.

It is by splitting to pieces these great detached droppings of the cliff--solid fragments of the original granite cliff,--that the contractors get the fine building stone of the Mormon temple in the city. There is no need to open any quarries. It is only necessary to drill and blast these big stones lying on the surface, and the demands of a hundred temples would not exhaust the supply. Men were at work as we passed, splitting out blocks that were dragged by stoneboats, or sent along the tramway down to where they could be loaded upon the railroad cars. Until three years ago every bit of this stone was hauled all the way to Salt Lake City by bullock teams, and the great expense and labor account both for the large expense and the slow progress of the mighty structure.

A mile or so above Wasatch station, the tramway entered a snow-shed; and with momentary exceptions, it never got out of it for seven miles. To the sight-seer this was discouraging; but it was compensated by the coolness, for in the stillness of the cañon, the sunshine, reflected from the dazzling walls, was fiercely hot, and our occasional emergences into it was like passing before the door of a blast furnace. These sheds are said to have cost one hundred thousand dollars, though the timber was close at hand and sawed in the cañon. They were necessary, for this is a gorge famous for its depth of snowfall and its avalanches. It required two hours to toil through the sheds and at the end we found as peculiar a scene of human life as could well be imagined. The cañon "heads" here, in an almost complete circle of heights, some of which reach, stark and splintered, far above timber-line. At the disbandment of General Connor's regiment of Californian troops in 1863, they scattered through the mountains and among other places came here. Prospecting the higher slopes, silver ore was discovered, and a host of miners came in, and began digging on all the hills. The famous "Emma," the "Flag Staff," and dozens of other mines were opened. A town, well-called _Alta_ (high), sprang up, and filled all the level land at the head of the valley, while buildings, and machinery and dumps dotted the mountain sides to their topmost ridges. Long paths had marked the ruin of avalanches before this, but when, to supply timber for the mines and the cabins, the mountain sides were denuded of their forests, large areas of deep snow became loosened in every great storm, and slid with crushing force, tearing up and carrying everything before it, to the bottom of the slope. Once the whole corner of the town was swept clean away; again and again miners lost their buildings at their tunnel entrances. Little work could be done in winter yet many stayed in Alta, isolated from the world, and at the mines, and many and many a one lost his life, to have his body found in a horrible condition when the winter was over. Then in the spring, when the frost was loosening the ground, and the melting snow was pouring a thousand waterfalls down the sides of the cañon, the snowslides were succeeded by the giving away of masses of soil and loose rocks, which came headlong into the bottom of the cañon. One such avalanche of rocks was pointed out to us which had slid down the opposite mountain with such force as to carry it clear across, and almost a hundred feet up the hither slope, sweeping away the tramway, sheds and all.

Meanwhile the original owners of the mines had sold them in the most prominent cases, for enough to make the men wealthy. Companies had been formed, the stock had been put upon the market, and the usual history of a mining camp was gone through. The "Emma," in the hands of a company of English capitalists, was made notorious by litigation, and for a long time was shut down. Now, however, a new era is beginning. Work has been resumed on many lodes that for years have been idle, and arctic Alta may yet range herself among the foremost silver-producing localities of the territory. We were all glad we went up there, yet were quite ready at four o'clock to return.

When we took our seats in the little sleigh-like car, no mules stood sedately tandem in front of it; and before we understood that we were ready, behold we were off! It was merely the loosening of a brake, and the car began to roll swiftly down the track. That was an exhilarating ride! Whisking round the curves, rattling through long tunnels, dodging out into the sunlight to catch a glimpse of a sparkling waterfall, or a bit of plain seen away down the cañon, then back again into the tunnel, where gophers and chip-munks and cotton tails were continually perking up their heads and then scuttling into some small cave of refuge as we rushed past--on and on, down and down in the face of the stiff breeze and under lofty walls, without an instant's check, until we glided into the little terminus, just twenty-five minutes out of Alta!

But our gravity railroading was not done yet. A small passenger car stood at the head of the railway track by which we had come up from the valley. As soon as we had entered it, our jolly driver-conductor (there was no gravity about him!) loosened the brake and we rushed off again like the ghost of a train, without engine or engineer, and went spinning down the tortuous track for a dozen miles to Bingham Junction. It was just as good fun as coasting--and better, for you didn't have to drag your own sled back up hill again.