Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1859 — Why Salt Lake to so Sal. [ARTICLE]

Why Salt Lake to so Sal.

M. Greeley writes from the center of Mormondom, as to the cause of the aaltneas of Salt Lake, thus: “That this lake should be salt is no sno-* maly. All large bodies of water into whitfr streams discharge themselves, while they have severally no outlet, are or should be salt. If one such is fresh, that ia an anomaly indeed. Lake Utah probably recerves as' much saline matter as Salt Lake, brrf gfte discharges it through the Jordan and re” mains herself fresh; while Salt Lake, having no issue, save by evaporation, ia probably the saltest body of water on earth. The ocean is comparatively fresh; even the Mediterranean at Leghorn is not half ao salt. I am told that three barrels ot thia water yield a barrel of salt; that seems rather strong, yet its intense saltness, no one who has not had it in his eyes, his mouth, hia nostrils, can realize. You can no more sink in it than in a clay bank; but a very little of it in your lungs would suffice to strangle you. You make your way in lrom a hot, rocky beech over a chaos of volcanic basalt that is trying to the feet, but at a depth of a yard or more you have a fine sand bottom, and here the bathing is delightful. “The water is of a light green color for ten or twenty rods, then ‘deeply, darklybeautifully blue.” No fish can live in it, no frog abides in it; few birds are erer seen dipping into it.”