Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1901 — SALT LAKE'S LEVEL. [ARTICLE]

SALT LAKE'S LEVEL.

Although It la Lowering, Thera I* Me Cause For Present Alarm. Reports from Salt Lake City show that the Great Salt Lake la at a lower level than ever before In Its recorded history. The amount of water flowing Into it has been less of late than the average and evaporation has been greater. This has awakened a fear that the lake is drying up—not that there Is thought to be immediate danger that it will disappear, but that the decline noted may be permanent. The Monthly Weather Review, published under the direction of the Weather Bureau, gives assurance that such is not the case. In other parts of the world similar records have been made, and great Interior bodies of water show lower levels than usual. Lakes of this kind have their periods of rise and fall, and it may confidently be expected that in the course of a few years Salt Lake will begin to rise again. It requires many years for bodies of water like these to permanently decline In volume. There Is a pendulum swing In their history, just as there Is In the records of precipitation. Every now and then one hears It said that our arid region climate Is changing because of an Increase or decrease In the amount of snow or rainfall. But an examination o meteorological records show that oscillations of that kind have gone on for years, and that sooner or later conditions get back to what they were before. It Is believed that at one time Salt Lake extended over a vastly greater surface than It does now. It has receded from what It was then, but whether it did so gradually or in consequence of some great geological change Is not so clear. It was in a long-ago geological era that it extended over the desert region lying to the west and reaching out in Nevada. A geological change in the surface of that part of the earth might enlarge Its area or cause It to disappear entirely. But movements of that kind occur only at long Intervals, and many generations of men may have passed away before another takes place.—Denver Republi can.