To the north and west of the lake there are many mountains, but they are too low and small to store up snow banks until the time of need. Their streams are spent before the summer comes; and only a few springs are perennial. The result is a general desert, dotted by a few oases. CHAPTER VIII. IRRIGABLE LANDS OF THE VALLEY OF THE SEVIER RIVER. BY CAPTAIN C. E. DUTTON. As an agricultural region, the valley of the Sevier River and of its tributaries is one of the most important in Utah. The amount of arable land which may be reached by the waters of the stream is very much larger than the stream can water advantageously, and the time is probably not far distant when all the water that can be obtained will be utilized in producing cereals, and there is probably no other region in Utah where the various problems relating to the most economic use of water will be solved so speedily. It is, therefore, a region of unusual interest, regarded in the light of the new industrial problems which the irrigation of these western lands is now bringing forward. Fortunately, there is a smaller prospect of difficulty and obstruction in the settlement of the legal controversies which must inevitably arise elsewhere out of disputes about water rights than will be encountered in other regions, for the Mormon Church is an institution which quietly, yet resistlessly, assumes the power to settle such disputes, and the Mormon people in these outlying settlements yield to its assumptions an unhesitating obedience. Whatever the church deems best for the general welfare of its dependencies it dictates, and what it dictates is invariably done with promptitude, and none have yet been found to resist. This communal arrangement has been attended with great success so far as the development of the water resources are concerned, and the system of management has ordinarily been so conducted that the general welfare has been immensely benefited; and if individuals have suffered, it has not been made manifest by any apparent symptoms of general discontent or of individual resistance. The system is by no means perfect as yet, but its imperfections may be found in details which produce no present serious inconvenience, and they will no doubt be remedied as rapidly as they attain the magnitude of great evils.