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Show CHEAT S'.LT LAKE. Salt Lake City, July 8. On the west of the lake, north of the end of Cedar Mountain, the Great Desert begins some 5,000 square miles of sand and alkali, only a few feet higher than the lake. Doubtless it was once a part of the lake, and possibly pos-sibly it will be again, for the lake surface sur-face has risen some fifteen feet since its first survey by Stansbury, in 18-19, and as much more will cover much of that desert. Straight BOUth the Oquirrh Range rises very abruptly from the end of the lake, there being barely room for wagon and railroad to pass; in fact, it is assumed by geologists geol-ogists that Antelope Island is but a continuation of that range, the break between covered by the salt water (lowing over a low pass. Twenty ni'lcs or so away I can make out the peak on which I stood six weeks ago and took a general view of this and Rush lakes and the adjoining valleys. h is olten taid that there is no living thing iu Great Salt Lake, but this is not strictly true. There is a minute animalcule at the bottom, resembling a fitiP cli.ivino nf thn L-in from nrm'a finger, more than miy thing else I can compare it to. As it yrows in size it beats in towards the 1 ,ud by the action of the waves, and finally Bwells up into the hkeness oi a worm and floats upon the water. The boatmen think that the flies, which are so numerous around the edges of the lake, breed from this worm, and this idea ia strengthened by the fact that the empty hulls of the worm, like aban-idonul aban-idonul sheila of chrysols, float on the water in large sections extending in long dark lines for hundreds of feet. At first I supposed these collections were merely the bodies of drowned flies, but on examination they proved to be the husks, so to ppeak, of what had been worms. All sorts of attempts at-tempts have been made to propatrate !iie m the lake, or mouths ol the affluent afflu-ent streams, but one and all havo failed. Oysters have been planted at tiio mouths of the rivers, but when tho wind was up stream the denne brine horn the lake, setting into the river's mouth, killed them. Jordan ! was stocked with eels a year or two 'ago, but they floated down into the lake and died. One was picked up long afterwards on the eastern Bhore, completely pickled. The finder j cooked and ate it, and found it verv palatable. Gulls and pelicans abound I in plaas around tho lakes feeding on jthe flies anil worms. Captain Stansbury Stans-bury repons finding a blind pelican which had beon fed by its companions and kept fit. At points wnere grat-sy niu.-ihts th-rdcr the lake tho buflalo gnais :ire numerous and troublesome. There are indications that buflalo nere abundant in this basin a hundred hun-dred years ai;o. The Indians say the Great Siiit changtd them all into crickets ! Tho latter were very destructive de-structive to the first crops of the Mor- uioih, until tho gulls came in im-meiihC im-meiihC flocks and ate them up. The Mormon historian in pious gratitude says: "There were no iuls iu the .country before tho Mormons came." I ii one meaning of that word, this is on a par fur lttcetiuu?neri with that statement state-ment in tho Bi k of Mormon: -"Great darkness overspread the land; yes, darkness wherein a lire could not bo kindled with the dryent wood." Cincinnati Commerrinl . |