The sect was founded by Joseph Smith at Manchester, New York, in 1830. Smith was born December 23, 1805, at Sharon, Vermont. When only fifteen years old he began to have alleged visions, in one of which, he asserts, the angel Moroni appeared to him three times and told him that the Bible of the Western Continent--a supplement to the New Testament--was buried in a certain spot near Manchester. Four years after this event he visited the spot indicated by the angel, and asserts that he had delivered into his charge by another angel a stone box, in which was a volume, six inches thick, made of thin gold plates, eight inches long by seven broad, and fastened together by three gold rings. The plates were said to be covered with small writing in the Egyptian character, and were accompanied by a pair of supernatural spectacles, consisting of two crystals set in a silver bow and called "Urim and Thummim." By aid of these the mystic characters could be read. Joseph Smith, being himself unable to read or write fluently, employed an amanuensis to whom he dictated a translation, which was afterward, in 1830, printed and published under the title of the "Book of Mormon." The book professes to give the history of America from its first settlement by a colony of refugees from the crowd dispersed by the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. These settlers having in the course of time destroyed one another, nothing of importance occurred until 600 B. C., when Lehi, his wife and four sons, with ten friends, all from Jerusalem, landed on the coast of Chili, and from that period, according to the Mormon theory, America became gradually peopled. OGDEN. Having heard much of the city of Ogden in Northern Utah--of its peculiar origin and rapid progress--I resolved to rest there for a day or two before proceeding to Corinne and other points in my route toward the Sierras. The pretty city of Ogden has had one of the wildest and most thrilling of birthplaces. To-day it reminds the stranger of one of the peaceful little cities of old Massachusetts, nestled among the Berkshire Hills, wide of street, stately of architecture, redolent of comfort and refinement. But in reality Ogden is the child of Utah. Mines of precious metals are its neighbors. It has been the scene of daring explorations, of Indian raids, and of many murders and massacres. Its original inhabitants were fanatics, so enthused with, so overwhelmed by their tenets, as to believe themselves of all the world the favorites of the Almighty, the only original handful of His saints, the small remnant of the human family to which constant revelations from Heaven were vouchsafed.