lderness, to the
pure religion of sunshine and snow, where all the good and the evil of
this strange people lifts and vanishes from the mind like mist from the
mountains.

VII. A Great Storm in Utah [9]

Utah has just been blessed with one of the grandest storms I have ever
beheld this side of the Sierra. The mountains are laden with fresh snow;
wild streams are swelling and booming adown the canyons, and out in the
valley of the Jordan a thousand rain-pools are gleaming in the sun.

With reference to the development of fertile storms bearing snow and
rain, the greater portion of the calendar springtime of Utah has been
winter. In all the upper canyons of the mountains the snow is now from
five to ten feet deep or more, and most of it has fallen since March.
Almost every other day during the last three weeks small local storms
have been falling on the Wahsatch and Oquirrh Mountains, while the
Jordan Valley remained dry and sun-filled. But on the afternoon of
Thursday, the 17th ultimo, wind, rain, and snow filled the whole basin,
driving wildly over valley and plain from range to range, bestowing
their benefactions in most cordial and harmonious storm-measures. The
oldest Saints say they have never witnessed a more violent storm of this
kind since the first settlement of Zion, and while the gale from the
northwest, with which the storm began, was rocking their adobe walls,
uprooting trees and darkening the streets with billows of dust and sand,
some of them seemed inclined to guess that the terrible phenomenon was
one of the signs of the times of which their preachers are so constantly
reminding them, the beginning of the outpouring of the treasured wrath
of the Lord upon the Gentiles for the killing of Joseph Smith. To me it
seemed a cordial outpouring of Nature's love; but it is easy to differ
with salt Latter-Days in everything--storms, wives, politics, and
religion.

About an hour before the storm reached the city I was so fortunate as
to be out with a friend on the banks of the Jordan enjoying the scenery.
Clouds, with peculiarly restless and self-conscious gestures, were
marshaling themselves along the mountain-tops, and sending out long,
overlapping wings across the valley; and even where no cloud was
visible, an obscuring film absorbed the sunlight, giving rise to a cold,
bluish darkness. Nevertheless, distant objects along the boundaries of
the landscape were revealed with wonderful distinctness in t