Salt for the early settlements of northern Arizona very generally was secured from the salt lake of the Zuni, just east of the New Mexican line, roughly 33 miles from St. Johns. As early as 1865, Sol Barth brought salt on pack mules from this lake to points as far westward as Prescott. In the records of a number of the Little Colorado settlements are found references to where the brethren visited a salt lake and came back with as much as two tons at a load. This lake is of sacred character to the Zuni, which, at certain times of the year send parties of priests and warriors to the lake, 45 miles south of the tribal village. There is elaborate ceremonial before salt is collected. Undoubtedly the lake was known to prehistoric peoples, for salt, probably obtained at this point, has been found in cliff ruins in southern Colorado, 200 miles from the source of supply. The Zuni even had a special goddess, Mawe, genius of the sacred salt lake, or "Salt Mother," to whom offerings were made at the lake. Warren K. Follett, in 1878, told that the lake lies 300 feet lower than the general surface of the country. The salt forms within the water, in layers of from three to four inches thick, and is of remarkable purity. The Hopi secured salt from a ledge in the Grand Canyon, below the mouth of the Little Colorado, about eighty miles northwest of their villages. At the point of mining, sacrifices were made before shrines of a goddess of salt and a god of war. The place has had description by Dr. Geo. Wharton James, whose knowledge of the gorge is most comprehensive. On the upper Verde and in Tonto Creek Valley are salt deposits, though very impure. Upper Salt River has a small deposit of very good sodium chloride, which was mined mainly for the mills of Globe, in the seventies. The Verde deposit now is being mined for shipment to paper mills of its sodium sulphate. Reference elsewhere is made to the salt mines of the Virgin River Valley. [Illustration: GRAND FALLS ON THE LITTLE COLORADO RIVER] [Illustration: ORIGINAL FORT MORONI WITH ITS STOCKADE] [Illustration: FORT MORONI IN LATER YEARS] The Mission Post of Moen Copie One of the most interesting early locations of the Mormon Church in Arizona was that of Moen Copie, about 75 miles southeast of Lee's Ferry. The name is a Hopi one, signifying "running water" or "many springs." The soil is alkaline, but it is a place where Indians had raised crops for generations. The presiding spirit of the locality was Tuba, the Oraibi chief, who had been taken by Jacob Hamblin to Utah, there to learn something of the white man's civilization. Joseph Fish wrote that at an early date Moen Copie was selected as a missionary post by Jacob Hamblin and Andrew S. Gibbons and that in 1871 and 1872, John L. Blythe and family were at that point.