point of annihilation in the exceptionally heavy snows of the winter of 1842-43. The Great Salt Lake, enshrined in the snowy mountains and resembling the Dead Sea of Palestine, strongly appealed to the imagination of a new sect which was to have a great effect on the Wilderness, a sect which in 1830 began its development, and notwithstanding vigorous and often bloody opposition or possibly because of it, augmented steadily its power. Those who adopted this new creed were commonly called Mormons though they designated themselves as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." The cult, like others which have prospered, was originated by a very poor and rather despised individual, Joseph Smith, near Palmyra, New York. By his followers, Smith was believed to possess supernatural powers as a seer and prophet. He had political ambition also, for in 1844, he "published an address to the people of the United States on the powers and policy of the general government and offered himself as a candidate for the office of President." Out of his visions and inspirations grew the now famous _Book of Mormon_, purporting to relate the history of the original people of the Western World, the Amerinds, or "Indians," descendants by its authority of some of those who were dispersed and lost to history by the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. In Mormon belief it supplements the Holy Bible, which they hold to be the history of the Eastern World as well as the Divinely inspired Word. Thus they have the Bible, the _Book of Mormon_, the _Book of Doctrine and Covenants_ and a book of guidance called _Pearl of Great Price_. First success was due to Sidney Rigdon. After a number of migrations in search of the proper spot whereon to found the New Jerusalem, the Mormons were attracted by reports of the Great Salt Lake, lying in Mexican territory, and in some degree duplicating the topography of the Holy Land. Having much difficulty with their neighbours, they were desirous of isolating themselves, and to them the region of the Salt Sea of the Wilderness seemed the promised land. Their Prophet Joseph had been murdered in cold blood, June 27, 1844, in Carthage jail, whither he had been taken from his Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois, having there, on the advice of the Governor, surrendered himself for trial on charges preferred by his opponents. The Mormons resolved then to move bodily to the valley of the American Dead Sea, wild and forbidding though it seemed. A thousand miles of separation from their antagonists, by what was then believed to be irreclaimable desert, was a condition they desired and doubtless they believed that once established on that foreign soil behind a barrier of mountain ranges, they would there be able to develop their institutions unmolested. No mind then foresaw the rapid exploration and settlement of the Wilderness which has taken place.