THE GREAT SALT LAKE

It was about noon when we had our first view of the Great Salt Lake, and although I had never then seen an ocean, I could not believe the existence of anything more wondrous than that huge body of salt water among the mountains.

Father says the lake is probably a full hundred miles long, and at its widest part no less than sixty miles; but this he knows only from that which he heard from the hunters or trappers, therefore I am not setting it down as positive information. It seems to me I remember having read in one of my schoolbooks that it is no more than seventy-five miles long and thirty miles wide.

However, this much which father says is true: that the lake has no outlet, and four barrels of its water being evaporated, will produce nearly a barrel of salt; therefore you can understand how much more salty it is than a real ocean.

No fish can live in it, and Eben Jordan declared that one of the trappers at Fort Bridger told him a man could not sink beneath the surface, so buoyant is the water.

The shore of this great inland sea was white with a crust of soda or salt, and the odor which came from the stagnant water in the marshes was so unpleasant as to cause me to feel really ill.