Show CHAPTER IV LAKE BONNEVILLE Is "great” in the sense that it is the largest salt lake in North America and the largest lake in the United States west of the Mississippi river However it is only a small remnant of its predecessor The Great Lake Bonneville Salt Lake which covered an area ten times as large as the present lake some 50000 to 100000 years ago pleistocene time Geologists tell us that- in - Bonneville Basin originated by distortion of the earth’s crust and came into existence long before the Bonneville epoch Little is known of its earliest climatic and physical conditions but it w as comparatively preceding the formation dry for a long period immediately There followed two epochs of of the great lake high water with an interval during whioh the basinwaswas The first of these epochs at empty nearly or quite scored least five times as long as the second The secondwould water mark 90 feet higher than the firsthand its have encroached still farther on the basin sides had it After the outflow had not been checked by outflow to its present ceased the water fell by desiccation The epoch of low water was level of greater duration than the time that has elapsed since the final desiccation From this statement it is evident that there were tremendous climatic changes during geological time in the whole The inter-Bonnevi- lle Great Basin region that there were times of abundant rain- 1 Grove Karl Gilbert Lake Bonneville graph is the most complete and authoritative with Lake Bonneville 316 work This mono dealing |