Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1893 — WAS ONCE A GREAT LAKE. [ARTICLE]

WAS ONCE A GREAT LAKE.

Dry Land in Utah Now Occupied by lOC Towns and Villages. It was very early known (indeed, according to a writer in the Scientific American, the early settlers could see it) that there had at one time been a great lake on the site of the present salt lake and desert in Utah. The early explorers noted the presence of terraces, flat topped and often of remarkably uniform height, which they knew to be water-formed. There were bars, also, across the mouths of side streams and spits, wave-cut cliffs at headlands, and, indeed, all the phenomena of lake shores along these terraces. Not only is there one terrace, but several, which mark changes in the level of the lake. Every tourist to Salt Lake City must have noticed the flat beaches clinging to the mountain sides and have marked the flat desert tract in which the great salt lake is situated, and, perhaps, have wondered what it means. They may have noticed the small mountain peaks rising from the great desert-like islands in the sea. These vyere once islands, and now ihey rise out of the lake sediments in which they are partly buried. When Lake Bonneville was full of water to overflowing it had a surface of 19,750 square miles—a magnitude ranking it with the greal lakes. Its maximum depth wa; 1,050 feet. If the water were tc rise again to it- old mark more than one hundred towns and villages would be submerged and 120,000 persons would be driven from theii homes. The Mormon temple would stand in 850 feet of water and 700 milesof railroad would be immersed. The history of the like is even mors complicated than has been indicated. There is evidence that long before the existence of the overflowing lake the site was practically dry and arid. The water afterward rose, but not to its rim. and then another change in climate occurred and aridity again set in and the lake basin became nearly, if not quite, dry. A second rise occurred and this time the lake overflowed to the ocean. Before, during and since the period of high water the great basin has been the seat of considerable volcanic activity. At times the lava has flowed on thfc margin of the lake, again it has entered the waters, and volcanic eruptions have occurred even in the lake itself. At present all volcanic activity seems to have ceased, though some of the lava has been erupted in very recent times. Not only has the level of the water changed, but even the level of the land has suffered a, change since the water sank below the terrace levels. Lake beaches are, of course, all formed in a horizontai position, and normally they should be at the same level in every part. But some of the terraces of Lake Bonneville are disturbed by faulting and folding, and are no longer level. These changes may possible be associated with the volcanic eruptions.