USA > Utah > Salt Lake County > Salt Lake > Utah gazatteer and directory of Logan, Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake cities, for 1884 > Part 25
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U AH GAZETTEER.
same little cove. The waves still sang the old storm song and rose in high crystal walls, seemingly hard enough to be cut in angular sections like ice.
"Without any definite determination I found myself undressed, as if some one else had taken me in hand; and while one of the largest waves was ringing out its message and spending itself on the beach, I ran out with open arms in the next, and received a hearty salute. Then I was fairly launched and at home, tossed into right lusty relationship with the brave old lake. Away I sped, in free glad motion, as if like a fish I had been afloat all my life, now low out of sight in the smooth glassy valley, now aloft on firm combing crest, while the crystal foam beat against my breast with keen, crisp clashing, as if composed of pure, crisp salt. I bowed to every wave, and cach lifted me right royally to their shoulders, almost set- ting me erect on my feet, while they went speeding by like living creatures, blooming and rejoicing in the brightness of the day, and chanting the his- tory of their grand old mountain home.
"A good deal of nonsense has been written concerning the difficulty of swimming in this heavy water. 'One's head would go down, and heels come up, and the acrid brine would burn like fire.' I was conscious only of a joyous exhilaration, my limbs seemingly heeding their own business, with- out any discomfort or confusion, so much so, that without any previous knowledge my experience on this occasion would not have led me to detect anything peculiar. In calm weather, however, the sustaining power of the water might probably be more marked. This was, by far, the most exciting and effective wave excursion I ever made this side of the Rocky Mountains; and when, at its close, I was heaved ashore among the sunny grasses and flowers, I found myself a new creature indeed, and went bounding along the beach with blood all aglow, reinforced by the best life salts of the mountains, and ready for any race.
"Since the completion of the trans-continental and Utah railways, this magnificent lake in the heart of the continent has become as accessible as any watering place on either coast; and I am sure that thousands of travelers, sick and well, would throng its shores every summer were its merits but half known. Lake Point is only an hour or two from the city, and has good hotel accommodations, and a steamboat for excursions; and then, besides the bracing waters, its climate is delightful. The mountains rise into the cool sky, furrowed with canyons almost Yosemitic in grandeur, and filled with a glorious profusion of flowers and trees. Lovers of science, lovers of wildness, lovers of pure rest will find here more than they ever may hope for."
The principal islands are Antelope and Stansbury, rocky ridges, rang- ing north and south, rising abruptly from the lake to an altitude of 3,000 feet. Antelope is the nearest to Salt Lake City, and is sixteen miles long. Stansbury is twenty miles to the westward of Antelope, and twelve miles long. Both at one time were accessible from the southern shore by wagon. Both had springs of sweet water and good grass for stock. The view from the summit of Antelope is described as "grand and magnificent, embracing the whole lake, the islands, and the encircling mountains covered with snow -a superb picture set in a framework of silver." Mention is made of the scenery on the eastern side of Stansbury. "Peak towers above peak, and cliff beyond cliff, in lofty magnificence, while, crowning the summit, the dome frowns in gloomy solitude upon the varied scene of bright waters, scattered verdure, and boundless plain (western shore) of arid desolation below. Descending one day from the dome, the gorge, at first almost shut up between perpendicular cliffs of white sandstone, opened out into a superb, wide, and gently sloping valley, sheltered on each side to the very water's edge by belting cliffs, effectually protected from all winds, except on the east, and covered with a most luxuriant growth of bunch-grass. Near
186
UTAH GAZETTEER.
the shore were abundant springs of pure, soft water," probably covered by the lake now. There was no sweet water on the western side of the island. Of minor islands, there are Fremont, Carrington, Gunnison, Dolphin, Mud. Egg, Hat, and several islets without names. With the ranges enclosing the valley they present water marks at different heights, one principal one 800 feet above the present lake level, indicating a comparatively recent receding of the waters, either from change of climate or the relative level of of the mountains and basin.
In all probability the whole area between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch was once a lake, in which the mountains rose as islands, and of which the lakes now existing, large and small, are the remains. The depos- its which cover the lowlands are chiefly calcareous and arenaceous, and often filled with fresh water and land shells, indicating a very modern origin. The formation of the islands and shore ranges adjoining Salt Lake is meta- morphic; the strata distinctly marked and highly inclined, but attaining no great elevation; generally overlaid with sandstones and limestones of the carboniferous age, both partly altered, the former constituting the loftier eminences; in places highly fossiliferous, in others, losing their granular character and becoming sub-crystalline, or threaded by veins of calcareous spar; the sandstones often, from metamorphic action, taking the character of quartz. In places on the islands, the surface is changed rocks, talcose and mica slates, hornblende and sienite. Captain Stansbury found the top of an island twenty miles west of the northern point of Antelope to consist of fine roofing slate. A nail could be driven through it almost as easily as through a shingle. It was in unlimited quantity. On another small island he found cubic crystals of iron pyrites in seams of ferruginous quartz. Near the point of Promontory Range he noticed a cliff of alum shale nearly a mile in length, traversed by dykes of trap, the shale containing numerous veins of very pure fibrous alum. Close by were strata of alum, slate, fine grindstone- grit, sandstone and albite. It is a manganese instead of an alkaline or true alum, but may be substituted for common alum in tanning leather, and, also, as a coloring agent in dyeing. Some of the islands are crowned with ledges of black and cream-colored marble.
Captain Stansbury navigated and examined the lake thoroughly, and was often oppressed by its solitude, nothing living in the water, although aquatic birds cover the shores and islands in the breeding season, either carrying their food from the fresh water streams that feed the lake or feeding on the larva of diptera, which accumulates in great quantity on or near the beaches. His boat was named the "Salicornia," contracted to "Sally" for common use, but he left no data as to its style and tonnage, except that it was flat-bottomed .. Next in order among the navigators of the lake were the Walker Brothers, merchants of Salt Lake City, who sailed a lonesome pleasure yacht for some years. There is now a considerable yachting fleet. În 1868 General Connor built and launched the " Kate Connor," a small steamer, for the purpose of transporting railroad ties and telegraph poles from the southern to the northern shore. The next spring he built a schooner of 100 tons burthen, called the "Pluribustah." These were fol- lowed by a pleasure steamer, brought on by John W. Young from New York, "The Lady of the Lake," and in 1870 by the building and launching of a first-class boat, costing $45,000, by Fox Diefendorf, called, at first, the "City of Corinne, " afterwards changed to " General Garfield." This boat was used chiefly for excursions, there being no business 'to justify Salt Lake navigation. The industries of its shores are not so magnificent, it seems, as those of the Tahuglauk in La Hontan's time, or perhaps railroads serve them better. The "Kate Connor" and her kindred long ago found a resting place at the bottom of the lake.
Though the land in sight is for the most part brown and sunburnt, an
187
UTAH GAZETTEER.
excursion on the lake is exceedingly interesting. The reader is supposed to have gone out to the south shore via the Utah and Nevada, the distance being about twenty miles, and to have embarked at Garfield Landing. Our course is northward, between Antelope and Stansbury. The water is of a beautiful aquamarine, and so clear that the bottom is seen through four fathoms of it. Behind, on shore, are the Oquirrh and Spring Valley Ranges, with Tooele ( Tuilla) Valley intervening and rising as it recedes so as to hide Rush Valley, into which the Dry and Ophir Canyons open. A few miles from shore the village of Tooele is indicated by an oasis of foliage, while far to the west, under the gleaming Spring Valley Range, high enough to retain a few snow banks, although it is July, lies the village of Grantsville. Abreast of Antelope Island we distinguish grazing herds. If boring on this island would bring plenty of sweet water what a fruit plantation it might be made, with the lake to keep off the frosts.
Between two and three hours out, having passed Stansbury, the view northwestward enlarges, and we might imagine ourselves standing out to sea but for an islet or two breaking the horizon. Through notches in the Cedar Mountains on the west the eye catches the snowy foreheads of the Goshoot and Deep Creek Ranges; while on the east the Wasatch rises 8,000 feet, a rugged, massive, gray wall of weather-sculptured rock 200 miles in length. Soon we have run past Antelope and are abreast of Fremont, which may be known by a rock upon its crest, resembling a castle. Con- tinuing northward, we shall soon have the Promontory Range on our left. with the water shoaling from fifteen to six or seven feet in our run of twenty miles, where we enter the channel of the Bear River. Forty years ago Fremont could not enter great Salt Lake from Bear River in a rubber boat eighteen feet fong, for want of water. Now a boat of 250 tons burthen passes from the lake into the river over the bank twenty miles from the lake shore. We can proceed up the river to Corinne, where the Central Pacific Railroad crosses it, but the lake excursions do not extend so far, or even as far as we have come. They usually go fifteen or twenty miles, far enough to get a good view of the surroundings, and there are few more interesting sights to be seen anywhere, and then return. The steamer "General Gar- field" has been dismantled, and is used as a house on the bathing ground of Garfield Landing. A small steamer, called the "Whirlwind," now affords a cheap opportunity for an excursion in the lake.
Great Salt Lake covers an area of 2,500 square miles, and its surface is higher than the average Alleghany Mountains. Its mean depth, probably, does not exceed twenty feet, the deepest place, between Antelope and Stans- bury, being sixty feet. The two principal islands used to be accessible from the shore by wagon; but the lake gradually filled five or six feet, from 1847 to 1856, and then slowly receded to its old level. In 1863 it began to fill again, and in tour or five years had attained a stage considerably higher than its present level, perhaps four or five feet. In 1875 a pillar was set up at Black Rock, by which to measure this rise and fall, resembling a tide, but having no ascertained time. It is very slight compared with what it form- erly was. Professor Gilbert, of the Geological Survey, says that twice within recent geological time, it has risen nearly a thousand feet higher than its present stage, and, of course, covered vastly more ground. He calls the lake after Captain Bonneville, the original explorer of these regions, whom Irving has immortalized, Lake Bonneville. Causes which learned men assign as producing what they call a glacial period might easily fill the lake until it extended nearly the whole length of Utah.
It was once popularly supposed that the lake communicated with the ocean by a subterranean river, which made a terrible whirlpool somewhere on its surface. Needless to say, neither has been found. Receiving so many streams and having no outlet, it has become very saline from evapor-
-
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UTAH GAZETTEER.
ation and the inflow of salt springs. The saline or solid matter held in solution by the water varies as the lake rises or subsides. In 1842 Fremont obtained "fourteen pints of very white salt" from five gallons of the water evaporated over a camp fire. The salt was also very pure, assaying 97.80 fine. The solid matter in the water varies between spring and fall, between dry and wet seasons, and also between different parts of the lake, for nearly all the fresh water is received from the Wasatch on the east. It is the opin- ion of salt makers that an average of the lake at its present stage would show the presence of 16 per cent. of solid matter. It is undoubtedly a con- centration of the waters of the ocean, in which, as in Salt Lake, says Dr. Smart, the common and magnesian salts are held in solution, while the insoluble lime salts are precipitated to the bottom. Captain Stansbury found by experiment that it answered perfectly for preserving meats.
Within the last few years the lake has become of great interest as a watering place. In the long sunny days of July and August the water becomes deliciously warm, and it is much warmer than ocean water a month earlier and later. It is so dense that one sustains himself indefinitely with- out effort, and vigorous constitutions experience no inconvenience from remaining in it a long time. A more delightful and healthy exercise than buffeting its waves when a little rough can hardly be imagined. But for its tendency to float the limbs to the surface and the necessity of keeping it out of the nostrils, it would afford the best swimming school in the world. As it is, all ages and sexes in Salt Lake are fast mastering the art. Experience has proved its hygienic benefits. Whether it be the stimulating effect of the brine upon the skin, of the saline air on the lungs, or the exercise of the muscles involved in swimming, or all of them together, many have come to the conclusion that a few weeks' sojourn on the lake shore in the hot season is absolutely essential to their weathering the year. The lake coast at the north end of the Oquirrh for two or three miles is sandy, soft to the feet, clean and shelving. During the hot months cheap trains leave for the bath- ing ground daily at the close of business. The run is made in forty minutes, and the excursion, aside from the bathing, is not unpleasant. Some day this shore will be built up with private watering-place cottages, plentifully interspersed by large, airy hotels, with water and trees for the grounds; and it will be thronged in the bathing season as no ordinary seaside resort ever is; for it offers unparalleled attractions in its way-rest, comfort, saline air, and the most delightful and invigorating exercise, calling into play all the muscles. Never tiring, the water is so buoyant; never chilling, it is so warm; free from danger; recreating and invigorating; a tonic for all; a remedy for many ills; health-restoring and strength-renewing. The east shore of the lake, on the line of the Utah Central and Central Pacific Railroads, is resorted to for bathing. It is becoming understood that for the renewal of life and energy there is nothing like a few weeks of Salt Lake bathing inter- spersed with visits to the medicinal springs and the mountain canyons and lakes.
CLIMATE.
Perfect climate, like perfect humanity, is perfect nonsense. The most desirable climate is that which, while still calculated to promote health, is also adapted to outdoor employment the greatest possible number of days in the year. Generally, however, climate is considered excellent, accord- ing to the proportion of deaths among those who live in it. The climate of New Zealand is considered par excellence, because of the prevail- ing health of the people; in fact, it is called the "Sanitarium of the World, the proportion of deaths to the population being so extremely low. And yet if people living in Utah were subject to the terrible rains that are of
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UTAH GAZETTEER.
common occurrence there, or should be forced to endure one of the long, strong and steady winds which blow, with such force as to carry clouds of gravel when it is not raining, they would pronounce the climate the most abominable under the sun. The climate of Utah is not perfect, it is too hot in summer for the most cold-blooded, too cold in winter for those of warm- est blood; and yet during the greater part of the year it is delightful.
The following table is from observations made by the Fort Douglas garrison for the first twelve years, and by the Signal Service officer at Salt Lake for seven years:
TEMPERATURE.
PRECIPITATION.
YEARS.
Mean.
Maximum.
Minimum.
Range.
Jaches.
1863
53.93
103
96
7.47
1865
50. 11
100
24
15.50
1866
51.87
94
85
33.39
1867
$2.71
95
95
26. 14
50.66
06
91
17.25
186g
53.61
97
90
33.32
1870
51.66
06
20.06
1871
53.09
104
06
23. 13
1872
50.43
91
91
78.19
1073
49.26
98
1074
50. 18
97
1875
51.26
101
· 31.07
1876
50.64
90
18.30
1877
51.00
95
14.53
18-8
51.29
97
107
13.41
1880
54.00
95
10.91
188:
51.54
100
16.83
Mean for Nineteen Years
51.54
$5.72
Among the highest observed temperatures are 121° at Fort Miller, California, and 132° in India; while the thermometer has been known to fall to 76' below zero in Siberia, and to 40° below in some parts of the United States .* At places in the East and West Indies, the entire annual range of the thermometer is 14°; at Montreal it is 140°; at New York, 114°; at St. Louis, 133°; at Chicago, 132°; at Denver, 126°. At Salt Lake City, as will be seen, it has exceeded 100° but twice in nineteen years. It has gone to 100° to 104° five times in those years, and to 3º to 10° below three times. The range has been less than 90° in that time oftener than it has been 100° or more.
The appended table will give an idea of the seasonal and annual means:
TEMPERATURE.
PRECIPITATION.
SEASONS.
Mean of the Max.
Mean of the Min. Tempera- Tempera- tures.
Mean Daily Variu- tion.
Mean Relative Humid- ity.
Snow and Rainfall, Inches.
Days on which Snow or Rain fell.
Sprink ..
50.3
60.0
88
20.5
41.9
6.91
30.5
Summer
73.4
85.0
24.5
28.5
1.55
14.0
Fall.
51.7
61.8
41.7
20.0
39.8
4.37
33.0
Winter
31.9
39.7
34.9
15.3
60.9
4.46
34.0
Appeal
51.8
61.6
41.6
20.0
43.8
17.29
100.5
1864
53.23
101
14.99
17.37
19.55
17.86
189 .
53.20
Mean of Season.
tures.
Loomis.
UTAH GAZETTEER.
The annual mean of Salt Lake City places it very near the isothermal line of 50°, which crosses nearly 15° of latitude on each continent, owing to the influences of oceans, winds and elevations, starting on Puget Sound and passing near or through Salt Lake City, Santa Fe. Denver, Burlington. Pittsburg, New Haven, Dublin, Brussels, Vienna and Pekin. The summer and winter means describe the same undulations in traversing the continents. and they are more indicative of the climate in its relations to animal and vegetable life than the usual mean. The mean annual temperature of New York and Liverpool are the same, yet throughout England the heat of summer is insufficient to ripen Indian corn, while the ivy, which grows lux - uriantly in England, can scarcely survive the severe winters of New York. In both the East and West Indies the mean temperature of the hottest month in the year differs very little (at Singapore 3%°) from that of the coldest. At Quebec, on the other hand, the difference is 60°, and at some places in Siberia, 100°. At Salt Lake City it is about 47º.
A summer mean of 73.4° may be thought high. To the extremes of summer heat, in nearly all parts of the United States, the lower valleys of Utah offer no very unusual exception. The higher valleys and mountains are always at hand, however, and Great Salt Lake exercises a mollifying oceanic influence on the extremes of temperature. "Some travelers have imagined that on its shores is to be found the most unique and wonderful climate on the face of the globe, combining, as it does, the light pure air of the neighboring snow-capped mountains with that of the briny lake itself: and it is fancied by many that, at certain points, one may inhale an atmos- phere salty and marine, like that of the shores of the Atlantic, happily com- bined with a cool, fresh, mountain air, 'like the breath of the Alps themselves. Owing to the absence of marine vegetation about the shores, however, there are none of the pleasant odors of the seashore."* At all events, the dry and absorbent character of the atmosphere relieves the oppression felt in humid climates at high temperatures.
The same may be said with reference to extremes of cold, although the average humidity in winter is more than twice as great as in summer. For the year it is 43; at Denver it is 46; at Philadelphia, 73. For spring, sum- mer and fall, it is 37, while for summer it is 28.5. The rainfall averages 17.3 inches a year, 40 per cent. of which is in the spring. 9 in the summer. 25 in the fall, and 25 in the winter. In latitude 40° there should be, un general principles, thirty inches in a year. Fort Laramie, Sacramento, and Santa Fe have about the same as Salt Lake City; Denver, a little less; while- over the entire area of the United States east of the 100th meridian west from Greenwich, the average annual rainfall is forty inches, t 60 per cent. of which is at once thrown off in the river drainage. Nothing in the mete- orological register of the last seven years indicates that the climate of Utah is growing moister; but Rush Lake rolls its blue waves over what was a meadow twenty years ago, and Great Salt Lake has at least ten feet of brine where wagons were driven to and fro in 1863. It has not gained any in contents in the last decade, however, and it would be nowise surprising were it to recede again to its old level. If the rainfall has increased because of the greater area of land cultivated and quantity of water diffused by irrigation as well as by the currents tapped in opening mines, the lake may be expected to retain its present level. Increased humidity has followed the settlement and cultivation of the Mississippi Valley prairies, and it is not unlikely that it is doing so in Utah, although there is not sufficient data as yet upon which to assert it. A peculiarity of the climate is the preponderance of rainfall in the spring, when it is most needed. Could a part of the moisture that is precipitated in winter be transferred to summer, there would be no necessity
*Surgeon E. P. Vollem, U. S. A.
+Blodget
191
UTAH GAZETTEER.
for irrigation. The days on which there is precipitation average one in four, but not half of them are really stormy days. There is hardly ever a cloud in the skies of Utah through which the sun is not looking.
The mean air-pressure at Salt Lake City is 25.63 inches; water boils at 204°. The prevailing winds are from the north-northwest, and the most windy months are March, July, August, and September. The mean velocity of the winds during the entire year is 573 miles an hour. On the ocean it is 18; at Liverpool it is 13; at Toronto, 9; at Philadel- phia, 11. The climate of Utah on the whole is not unlike that of northwestern Texas and New Mexico, and is agreeable except for a month or so in winter, and then the temperature seldom falls to zero or snow to a greater depth than a foot; and it soon melts away; although it sometimes affords a few days' sleighing. The spring opens in March, the atmosphere becomes clear as a dewdrop, deciduous trees burst into leafy bloom, and the green of the valleys pursues the retiring snow-line up the mountain slopes. The summer is pleasant in its onset, accompanied by fragrant airs and full streams. Springs of sweet water, fed largely from the surface, bubble forth everywhere. But as the season advances the heat increases, the winds become laden with dust, the storms are mainly dry, the springs fail or become brackish from concentration of their mineral salts, the streams run low, and vegetation parches unless artificially watered. Still, from the rapid radiation at the earth's surface, the nights are agreeably cool and give strength to bear the heat of the days. In October the air clears up again as in spring, and the landscape softens with the rich colors of the dying vegetation, which reaches up the mountain sides to the sum- mits in places, but on them the gorgeous picture is soon overlaid by the first snows of approaching winter. The fall is delightful and generally lingers nearly to the end of the year.
The dry air and slight rainfall peculiarly adapt Utah to that out-of-door living, tramping, and camping which so quickly renovates a broken-down nerve apparatus, and through that all organic processes. Pure water and wholesome food are abundant. One has a choice of altitude ranging between 2,300 and 12,000 feet above sea, access to a variety of mineral springs with remedial qualities for many ills, and in Salt Lake Basin, con- taining 50 per cent. of the population, the ameliorating influences of 2,500 square miles of salt water. Hardly any form of disease originates or pro- ceeds to the chronic stage in the Territory, and upon many who come here diseased, if not too far gone, mere residence has a very beneficial effect.
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