Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the MormonsRobinson, Phil
General
Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the Mormons
Robinson, Phil
Latter Day Saint churches; Utah -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
Two nearly parallel ranges of the Rocky Mountains, forming together
part of the Wasatch range, run north and south through the length
of Utah, and enclose between them a long strip of more or less
desolate-looking land. Spurs run out from these opposing ranges, and
meeting, cut off this strip into "valleys" of various lengths, so that,
travelling from north to south, I crossed in succession, in the line
of four hundred miles or so, the Cache, Salt Lake, Utah, Juab, San
Pete, and Sevier valleys (the last enclosing Marysvale, Circle Valley
and Panguitch Valley), and having there turned the end of the Wasatch
range, travelled into Long Valley, which runs nearly east and west
across the Territory.
In the Cache and the Sevier valleys there are some noble expanses of
natural meadow, but in all the rest the soil, where not cultivated,
is densely overgrown with sage-brush, greasewood and rabbit-brush,
and in no case except the Cache Valley (by far the finest section of
the Territory) and Long Valley, is the water-supply sufficient to
irrigate the whole area enclosed. The proportions under cultivation
vary therefore according to the amount of the water, and the size
of the settlements is of course in an almost regular ratio with the
acreage under the plough. But all are exactly on the same pattern. Wide
streets--varying from 80 to 160 feet in width--avenued on either side
with cotton-wood, box-elder, poplar, and locust-trees, and usually with
a runnel of water alongside each side-walk, intersect each other at
right angles, the blocks thus formed measuring from four to ten acres.
These blocks hold, it may be, as many as six houses, but, as a rule,
three, two, or only one; while the proportion of fruit and shade-trees
to dwelling-houses ranges from a hundred to one to twenty to one. As
the lots are not occupied in any regular succession, there are frequent
gaps caused by empty blocks, while the streets towards the outer limits
of the towns are still half overgrown with the original sage-brush.
All the settlements therefore, resemble each other, except in size,
very closely, and may be briefly described as groves of trees and fruit
orchards with houses scattered about among them.
The settlements of the Church stretch in a line north and south
throughout the whole length of the Territory, and on reaching the Rio
Virgin, in the extreme south, follow the course of that river right
across Utah to the eastern frontier. The soil throughout the line north
and south appears to be of a nearly uniform character, as the same
wild plants are to be found growing on it everywhere, and the sudden
alternations of fertility and wilderness are due almost entirely to the
abundance or absence of water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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