aints, so grandly that the city itself is hardly visible. The
Wahsatch Range, snow-laden and adorned with glacier-sculpted peaks,
stretches continuously along the eastern horizon, forming the boundary
of the Great Salt Lake Basin; while across the valley of the Jordan
southwestward from here, you behold the Oquirrh Range, about as snowy
and lofty as the Wahsatch. To the northwest your eye skims the blue
levels of the great lake, out of the midst of which rise island
mountains, and beyond, at a distance of fifty miles, is seen the
picturesque wall of the lakeside mountains blending with the lake and
the sky.

The glacial developments of these superb ranges are sharply sculptured
peaks and crests, with ample wombs between them where the ancient snows
of the glacial period were collected and transformed into ice, and ranks
of profound shadowy canyons, while moraines commensurate with the lofty
fountains extend into the valleys, forming far the grandest series of
glacial monuments I have yet seen this side of the Sierra.

In beginning this letter I meant to describe the city, but in the
company of these noble old mountains, it is not easy to bend one's
attention upon anything else. Salt Lake cannot be called a very
beautiful town, neither is there anything ugly or repulsive about it.
From the slopes of the Wahsatch foothills, or old lake benches, toward
Fort Douglas it is seen to occupy the sloping gravelly delta of City
Creek, a fine, hearty stream that comes pouring from the snows of the
mountains through a majestic glacial canyon; and it is just where this
stream comes forth into the light on the edge of the valley of the
Jordan that the Mormons have built their new Jerusalem.

At first sight there is nothing very marked in the external appearance
of the town excepting its leafiness. Most of the houses are veiled with
trees, as if set down in the midst of one grand orchard; and seen at a
little distance they appear like a field of glacier boulders overgrown
with aspens, such as one often meets in the upper valleys of the
California Sierra, for only the angular roofs are clearly visible.

Perhaps nineteen twentieths of the houses are built of bluish-gray adobe
bricks, and are only one or two stories high, forming fine cottage homes
which promise simple comfort within. They are set well back from the
street, leaving room for a flower garden, while almost every one has a
thrifty orchard at the sides and around the back.