CHAPTER XXXIII.

UTAH.

Area--Acquisition-Climate-Seasons-Mines-Mining-Minerals

-Mountains-Lakes-Rivers- Agriculture- Education- Material development-Mormons-Society-Population-Great Salt lake and Salt Lake City-Overland railroad-Discovery and history of Salt lake.

THE Territory of Utah, embracing an area of 106,382 square miles, is situated directly east of the State of Nevada, and is bounded on the west by Nevada, north by Idaho and Wyoming, east by Colorado, and south by Arizona.

The area comprising Utah, like that of Nevada and a great part of the Territory of Arizona, formerly belonged to the Mexican Territory of California, and title to it was acquired by the United States when, in 1846, Commodore Sloat took possession of California by hoisting the American flag over the Mexican territorial capital at Monterey, and by subsequent treaty between the United States and the Republic of Mexico

The Territory, as now bounded, is situated directly in the line of the overland railroad connecting San Francisco with Chicago, New York, and other eastern cities. Ogden, at the head of Great Salt lake, is 881 miles east of San Francisco and 1,913 miles west of Omaha. The road, running in an easterly and westerly direction, passes through the extreme northern end of the Territory, and close to the northern end of Great Salt lake, and through the city of Ogden, and distant from Salt Lake City about thirty-six miles. Between

this point and the chief city of the "Saints," connection is made by a branch railroad uniting the city of Ogden and Great Salt Lake City.

The climate of Utah is mild in many parts, and nearly all the tropical and all the semi-tropical fruits grow well in the southern districts. Snow seldom falls in the valleys, and the rainfall is much less than in the northern part of California. Altogether, the climate is delightful, and in comparison with the country directly east of the Rocky mountains, and in the same degree of latitude throughout the whole Atlantic coast, it might be termed perpetual summer.

The northern part of the Territory is mountainous, and in these regions snow falls to a great depth in winter, and for several months the hills and mountains are clad in great depths of snow, and cold is intense.

Mines of the precious and other metals are found throughout the hilly sections, and the yield of silver during the past few years has greatly increased, inducing foreign and American capital to embark quite largely in the development of the great silver veins of this Territory.

Valleys of great extent and unsurpassed productiveness are numerous, and many of them are well watered by the innumerable streams pouring down from the mountains and emptying their floods into the lakes below, and by canals and ditches. In the southern section of the Territory, the surface is much more level and less broken by jagged mountain ranges than in the north, and in this quarter there are wide ranges of unproductive and barren soil. But there are also innumerable valleys of great beauty and fertility, producing grain, fruit, vegetables, tobacco, and cotton. Through

this section, added to a genial climate and rich soil, are the almost countless branches of the main Bear river, Colorado, Sevier, Ogden, Weber, Green, and Grand rivers-supplying the country abundantly with water.

The Colorado river proper (but near its source known as the Green river) has its fountain-head in the western base of the Rocky mountains, in the centre of Wyoming Territory, from which point it passes in a southwestern direction in its serpentine course, for more than fifteen hundred miles in length, until it reaches the Gulf of California, through which it finds a passage for its waters to the Pacific ocean.

Utah, under the stimulus of railroads, the opening of her mines, the development of her agricultural resources, and the industry of her people, is fast assuming marked indications of permanent prosperity. The hand of skilled labor is leading the cooling waters of the high mountain streams and lakes into the parched valleys, and converting seeming sterile and desert wastes into fields of waving corn, and gardens and orchards of beauty and great value.

The productiveness and fertility of the soil is unsurpassed by any section of the country. Large areas under wheat produce as high as twenty-two bushels to the acre; barley, twenty-nine bushels; corn, twenty-four bushels; oats, thirty-three bushels; and potatoes, one hundred and twenty-five bushels: these are about the average productions, and far surpass the yield of any State or Territory east of the Rocky mountains.

Public schools are maintained by law. In 1870, there were 200 school districts and 25,000 school children between the ages of four and sixteen years in the Territory. Polygamy being a part of the religion of the

people, the increase of children, in proportion to the population, is remarkably large as compared with other sections of the country.

The mineral wealth of Utah, which, until recently, had been almost entirely unknown, is fast attracting public attention; and the annual product of gold and silver is estimated at $2,500,000, with every prospect of a large increase. But the wealth of the Territory is not confined to the precious metals. Iron, copper, lead, and many other minerals abound throughout the country, and inexhaustible beds of superior coal have recently been opened, and the great salt inland sea of Great Salt lake-seventy-five miles in length, thirty-five miles in breadth, and 4,300 feet above the sea-supplies unlimited quantities of salt.

A half a century ago the foot of a white man had not entered the vast region of the "Great Salt Lake desert," and the people now knocking at the doors of the national halls of legislation for the admission of the State of Deseret were scattered in every corner of the globe, and might still be beyond the Rocky mountains and over the seas in interior Europe had it not been for the quickening impulse of the "spirit of prophecy" and the new revelation to the "prophet Joseph" of the new religion through which wandering spirits could easily reach the abode of the blessed, and rejoice with their fathers through righteousness and the deeds done in the flesh.

Agriculture and stock-raising are the chief occupations of the people, but recently a variety of manufacturing industries and mining occupy a large portion of the skill and labor of the people of Utah, great numbers of whom belonged to the laboring classes of Europe