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Show SALT LAKE CITY. Frc-m the OTerlmJ Montliij. "Once upon a time'' there dwelt in Nauyoo a man whoe name was Brig-bam Brig-bam Young. Tritiulatiocs numberless .iarrounded him and his Saints: the chosen and peculiar people of onr latter days. They were in the midst of a generation which knew not Joseph Smith. And then it came to pass that Brigham had a yision- He had wandered far away into an inhospitable inhospita-ble wilderness a region of mountain-and mountain-and desert.-, of sarages and alkali. Sud denly before him ,ose a majestic peak a peak of singular conformation, its sum-flit rounded and leaning forward like the full crest of an ocean wave. As thi dreamer surveyed the scene, the heavens above the mountain were npened, and a mighty Star-Spangled Banner appeared; it floated through ihe air with Etately grace until it alighted on the mountain-top, when a voice from heaven spoke in our dear Anglo-Saxon tongue: "Build your city at the foot of this mountain, and you shall hare prosperity and rest." The trials aud perturbations of the Saints became too mighty to be borne. They were driven from their homes across the Missouri Biver, marking their route from Nauvoo to Council Bluffs with the graves of those whom famine and exposure had caused to Serish by the way. Then it was that Irigham Young, the undismayed leader lea-der of the straggling host, announced his reception of the heavenly vision. Said he to his well-nigh disheartened followers: "Somewhere in the unknown un-known and undiscovered West; somewhere some-where in the bosom of the far-off mountains moun-tains of Mexico, there remaim th prosperity pros-perity and rest for the people of God." He put himself at the head of 143 stalwart men, with a few women tc cook, aud nurse the sick, and set forth to the unknown Occident to search for the mountain of his ' dream. For months they continued their weary journey, fording unknown rivers, pulling pul-ling their wagons with ropes through well-nigh impassable canons, until they had traveled twelve hundred miles from Council Bluffs. Through a narrow nar-row defile in the Wasatch mountains they entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and immediately beside them rose a mountain which Brigbam at once designated as the scene tf his prophetic dream. Iu re tiembrance of the flag which had descended upon it, it was christened "Ensign Peak," which name it bears to the present day. The work of buildinsr the city was commenced on the veiy d.iy of their arrival, July 24th, 1847, and the sacred mountain tu day looks kindly down upon a city of 20,000 people nestling at its foot. Such, U reader! is the tale which you would hear from Brigham Young or any of his principal .-uboruinutes to-day, were you to interrogate them as to the cause of their location in their Hjppy Valley. Bir it will be difficult for you, if you are not also a professional profes-sional writer of the press, to realize the re:ish and gusto with which we have penned this legend. "We live," in the touching words of another, "in a practical age." Commerce is king. The past has its abounding wealth of legendary lore, from which are built the poems, and prophecies and romances ro-mances of to-day. Trade and its ne cessities dictate where shall be built the commercial centres of the world. It need not be demonstrated that all the great cities of our day owe their importance to some base worldly advantage, visible to the eyes of uninspired unin-spired men, aud are liable tj lose their position and power iu the world by any trivial circumstance. Not to, however, with the city whose career we chronicle. chroni-cle. Founded by inspiration, Salt Lake City must be eternal. It despises the factitious aids by which other cities attain to greatness. For it nature has dona nothing except in the raw material mater-ial for essence of sage-brush, or oil of grease-wood. Without a harbor, its capacious tabernacle is the pharos from wheuce radiates the light which godly Saints believe alone shines fur the vivifying viv-ifying and illuminating of all the world. The tourist who shall hereafter visit Salt Lake City will survey this Mecca with far other feelings and emotions than his more adventurous predecessor. Luxuriantly ensconced in the palace-cars palace-cars of the ubicpuitous Pullman, after a delightful ride of three or four davs, he alights at the City of the Saints. Of the country passed over for a thousand thous-and miles before reaching it, he knows almost nothing. He has looked from his window occasionally to survey a herd of antelopes, or a picturesque mountain landscape. He compares the mountain town with the cities of the East or West, where time, and taste, and wealth, and a Nature less niggardly niggard-ly of her favors have combined to create cre-ate and develop artistic feaulies : and his verdict is that Salt Lake is but a dull and prosaic village. Before the advent of the Kailroad, however, the traveler prepared him-eif by a dreary exerience to value the beauties of the desert-circled town. A weary journey for weeks or months over apparently eudless plains, fearful in iheir unvarying unvary-ing monotony; over saL-e-brush desert?, parched and gray; ov"r alkaline marshes, marsh-es, whitened with the bones of poisoned pois-oned herds, and through niounra a ranges, grand indeed, but with the grandeur of blackness and total deflation, defla-tion, prepared the tourist to apprc-cia apprc-cia c the w. -Iconic sitht cf human habitation.-, of well-til. ed gardens an I ihiiftv hums. A f w week diet of rusty baeon sml doubtful bean-, 11. m-iliarlr m-iliarlr known ir:r"e!'-rs a-. "Ben iJ.illaday s chicken-.' made dooh succulent and d. -iici'.u- the frui:- nnj vegetables of the Mormon gard--n-. And aliove all, the piigriui saw and spied out iu full tho homLit: bsrn-n ne-s of the land, and kn-.-w the co-t of its redemption from its first e-'a;e. The pioneers of the Great Basin will never again receive 'nil credit f t ;lie:r toils ana sacrifices. 1 ho i rai.seorrinen-tal rai.seorrinen-tal railroad i- a j.reat enchanter a steam Merlin. The tourist reads up j for his journey from ocean to ooe&n of the cares and toils of the Ca'iforn'a iuimicran"? and the Mormon pioneer-: of Bitter Creek and Stinking Water : of Humboldt Desert and Rattlesnake I Pass. He stops at Bitter Cieek station, sta-tion, firmly resolved to drink none of the poisoned water, but sit- down tit a table well supplied with Ve.u -on from the Piatte basin, cranberries fr..m Alaska, Alas-ka, and Sonoma grapes. IL1 passes Rattlesnake Gulch unconsciously while enjoying his cigar in the smoking car, and as he prepares for a comfortable sleep across the Humboldt Pesert, placidly compares himself with Fremont, Fre-mont, or Clarke, or the Mormon pioneers, pio-neers, and decides that their accounts of the fatigues and dangers of an exploration ex-ploration across the continent were highly colored, for that he did the like without the loss of a night's repose, and without grievous dietetic hardship. hard-ship. The great basin in which Salt Lake City is situated is nearly circular, and nearly five hundred miles in diameter. This basin has, as is well known, no visible outlet to the sea. In it are many considerable rivers, all of which sink, or flow, into lakes having no outlets. out-lets. The Carson and Humboldt rivers, riv-ers, in Nevada, aud the Sevier river, in southern Utah, lose themselves in marshy lakes. The waters of th se lakes are fresh, thus indicating the possibility of subterranean outlets. The saltuess of the waters of Great Salt Lake, however, indicates that no SHch outlet exists. Four large river? the Jordan, Weber, Ogden and Bear pour their contents into this reservjir. The soil of Utah contains everywhere a slight proportion of salt, which itupiegnates, in au almo.-t imperceptible im-perceptible degree the waters of all these rivers. The evaporation, for ; ages, ol the water ot the lake con en-i en-i trates the salt, and explains its saline character without the necessity of the theories of salt mountains, or springs, in its hidden depths. This lake Was, in former tiuies,of much greater extent than at present, covering a large proportion pro-portion of the Great Basin, as isshown by the pebbly lines marking its former beuch, more than seven hundred feet aoove its present level, and which stretch lor hundreds of miles unbroken along the bases ol the mountains. Mr. Clarence King, in his explorations dur ing the year 1869, discovered and traced the former outlet of this vast inland sea, which was through the Snake or Shoshone river, to the Pacific Ocean. Few places cau vie with Salt Lake City in natural beauty of location. It is at the north-east corner of a valley nearly elliptical in form, about twenty-five twenty-five miles in lengih an 1 fifteeg miles in breadth. Immediately behind the city, on the norih and eas', rise the lofty peaks of the Wahsateh rang, oftnoun tains. This range extends sou. hward, foi 'Uiing the eastern boundary of the valley, its highest peaks Within an easy day's ride of the city being covered cov-ered with perpetual snow. On the west, the Oqtiinh range of mountains extends southerly, for some distance nearly parallel with the Wahsateh, but the two ranges, at the southern terminus ter-minus of the valley, are only separated by the narrow canon through which the Jordan River enters the valley. The Great Salt Lake forms the north-western boundary of the valley. Several large island mountains rise abruntlv from the surface of the lake. From its great density nearly one-fourth its weight being pure salt the waters of this lnke, viewed from a distance, are of a much deeper blue than any waters elsewhere found. The Jordan River flows from the south through the valley, the city being situated upon its ea tern bank, aud reaches the lake about ten miles northerly from the city. The Wahsateh Range, at several points near the city, is pierced by vast and rugged cano ., from which, fed by the snows upon the summits, fl w the streams of water used in irrigating the land. The scenery in these ninoitf is of unsurpassed grandeur. A visit to any one of the half-dozen accessible from the city by a ride of a single day, will furnish an experience never to be forgotten by the student of Nature. In the northern portion of the city is a warm, saline, sulphur spring, pos"-scssing pos"-scssing valuable medicinal virtues. The temperature of the water is 102c Fahrenheit. Fah-renheit. Comfortable bathing-houses have been erected by the city and the baths are much frequented by residents and visitors The waters seem highly efficacious for the treatment of rheumatism rheu-matism in its various forms, and for nearly all diseases arising from vitiated blood. The spring discharges a laree volume of water, and, with increasing facilities for travel, will doubtless become be-come a place of great resort. The streets of the city, crossing each other at right angles, are lull feet wide; the block, forty rods square, and containing con-taining ten acres each, are divided into eignt lots, eaeu containing one and one-fourth acres. In the business portions por-tions of the town, these large lots have been, of course, subdivided, but nearly all the citizens own a lull lot f r a resi dence, which enat.les tlieiu to produce an ample supply ol fiuit and veg.-tunh-s for faeuily use, from their own garden-. Rented property is extremely rare: In no city of the world do so lart'e a i.ro-portion i.ro-portion of the people own the hou-es in which they live. The size ol the iuls causes the city to o"'Ver an area probably len time.- as great a- an ordinary or-dinary r-ity of the same population. ! In a :.untry where, fur half ihe j car. rain is nearly unknown, a most I delightful feature is tiie abundant sup-j sup-j p:y -,f water in every part of thf city, j On eacn sio.e. ot every street Hows a j nreatu of pure, crystal wat r. ire-h j Ir.-m the meitiriL' snow.- ot the ne.un- tains. The canals. 1 .r the di-tr:butim ul the water, were tirst , on-ti uco-1 to, i a general tax. The water is fnrrii-hea ; to cii without charge except in annua, j tar of about 1 prl.i;. wiiiei, is u-u. ahy paid in la!.r by the parties iinnn-I iinnn-I 'Ji-itcly iiii'-re-'ed id the water s-iq.1;.. and is soiely tbr the purpo-e of atx pin; the canals and ditches iu repair. to ee co.sTi-rrD.j |