Sea. But it, is also the case that almost all the
sheets of water in the interior of Africa and
Australia, which are all above the sea level,
become brackish each season by evaporation
from the surface, after the rainy season is
concluded. The impress of its original
formation is not easily lost to a deposit, and it
is one of the most singular illustrations of
the cause of what was at one time least
explicable in the structure of the two great continents
of Africa and Australia, that in the
absence of a central mountain range and of great
rivers proceeding from such range through a
sloping country, or in any other case where
natural drainage is interfered with, the sheets
of water, or shallow lakes, are generally brackish.
If any proof were wanting that all parts
of the earth have been at one time at the
bottom of the sea, it could not be more
satisfactorily obtained than from the due consideration
of this fact, and its illustration in the cases
before us.

The Salt Lake of the Mormons appears to
represent, on a small scale, the saline marshes of
Australia and Africa. In the part of North
America that extends between New Mexico
and Oregon, bounded on the east by the Rocky
Mountains, and on the west by the Sierra
Nevada of California, there is an extent of
nearly two millions of square miles, forming the
territory of Utah. For the most part this
country is a flat desert, though there are not
wanting a number of parallel ridges of considerable
elevation that rise out of it. On the north,
the Columbia river, and on the south the
Colorado, traverse it, and carry off part of the
drainage that would otherwise form a vast
freshwater lake in the interior; but towards the
centre, the only drainage is into a number of
pools, of which the largest and most important
is that which has become famous as affording
a safe resort for the Mormons.

This lake is about two hundred and fifty miles
in circumference at present, but has evidently
once covered a much larger area, and may do
so again, should anything interfere with the
drainage of the district. It is of irregular
outline, and very shallow, with several islands
rising to some height out of the water. The
water yields from twenty to nearly forty per
cent of salt, according to the season, and in
this respect agrees almost exactly with the
Dead Sea: showing that there is in both cases
ample material for complete saturation. But
there is a very great difference in the nature of
the mineral contents, inasmuch as in the Salt
Lake of Utah almost the whole of the salt is of
the common kind used for the table, whereas in
the Dead Sea barely one-half is of this nature,
the rest consisting of salts of magnesia and lime.
White salt in large quantities forms a kind of
scum on the shingles of the shore of the Salt
Lake; and its vast expanse, as blue as the ocean,
is only occasionally ruffled by the wind, and
appears to afford no support to either animal or
vegetable life. Not a boat of any kind is to be
seen upon it, not a tree flourishes on its borders,
nor on any of the adjacent plains; neither fish
nor mollusk inhabits it, and if the trout of the
streams of the vicinity are unfortunate enough
to enter it, they instantly die. One kind of
poor worm dwells solitary on the sands which
enclose it, and one dull leathery seaweed
redeems the blank barrenness that otherwise
reigns around.

Locusts, which are occasionally the pests of
the distant plains, if driven in this direction,
are destroyed, and a deposit a foot deep of
their dead bodies is described by a recent
traveller as the only presence that recalled him to
the organic world.

The Mormon city of New Jerusalem is situated
only a few hours' ride from this dreary lake.
Rising out of the great desert of Utah, it forms
a kind of advanced post, midway between the
Western or Atlantic States of the Union, and the
Pacific State of California. Almost inaccessible,
owing to the natural difficulties of the intervening
country—but in a district fertile enough, when
once reached—no better spot could have been
discovered on the surface of the earth for modern
Mohammedanism; and it is especially in reference
to this part of the case, that we have brought
the Salt Lake of Utah into comparison with the
buried cities of the plain in the Eastern world.

Strange is the contrast of life in these two
localities. The one in the old world, within a
few leagues of the ancient Jerusalem, the scene
of events the most interesting to the human
race that have taken place since the foundation
of the world, is now the haunt of the wild Arab
— half Mohammedan, half pagan— under whose
protection the Christian traveller must be placed
to visit these savage and deserted spots. A few
doubtful ruins mark spots whose history will
never be forgotten; but the general aspect is
that of dreary, but picturesque, mountains, wild
passes, and gloomy volcanic gorges.

Jerusalem itself, also, has been well described
in these few words: " A broken and desolate
plain in front is bounded by a wavy, battlemented
wall, over which towers frown, and
minarets peer, and mosque domes swell,
intermingled with church turret, and an
indistinguishable mass of terraced roofs."*

Of the New Jerusalem, a very recent traveller
informs us that all the streets are a hundred and
thirty feet wide, and run from north to south,
and from east to west, forming square blocks of
houses, each side measuring six hundred and
fifty-seven feet. Each house is surrounded by
gardens. The houses are built of adobes (mud
bricks unburnt), generally in a simple style,
frequently elegant, and always clean. Some of the
dwellings are very large: among others, there is in
course of construction for the governor, Brigham
Young, a palace measuring ninety-eight feet by
forty feet, built of several kinds of stone at
great cost. "The long salient ogives of the
windows of the upper story give to the roof
which they interred the appearance of a crenelated
diadem, and render this monument a model

* Warburton's Crescent and Cross, vol. ii. p. 144.