The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 19, May, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 19, May, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Nowhere is the absence of trees, the utter desolation of the scenery,
more impressive than in a view from the southern shore of the Great Salt
Lake. The broad plain which intervenes between its margin and the
foot of the Wahsatch Range is almost entirely lost sight of; the
mountain-slopes, their summits flecked with snow, seem to descend into
water on every side except the northern, on which the blue line of the
horizon is interrupted only by Antelope Island. The prospect in that
direction is apparently as illimitable as from the shore of an ocean.
The sky is almost invariably clear, and the water intensely blue, except
where it dashes over fragments of rock that have fallen from some
adjacent cliff, or where a wave, more aspiring than its fellows,
overreaches itself and breaks into a thin line of foam. Through a gap in
the ranges on the west, the line of the Great Desert is dimly visible.
The beach of the lake is marked by a broad belt of fine sand, the grains
of which are all globular. Along its upper margin is a rank growth of
reeds and salt grass. Swarms of tiny flies cover the surface of every
half-evaporated pool, and a few white sea-gulls are drifting on the
swells. Nowhere is there a sign of refreshing verdure except on the
distant mountainsides, where patches of green grass glow in the sunlight
among the vast fields of sage.
The buildings throughout the entire Territory are, almost without
exception, of adobe. The brick is of a uniform drab color, more pleasing
to the eye than the reddish hue of the adobes of New Mexico or the buff
tinge of many of those in California. In size it is about double that
commonly used in the States. The clay, also, is of very superior
quality. The principal stone building in the Territory is the Capitol,
at Fillmore, one hundred and fifty miles south of Salt Lake City. The
design of the architect is for a very magnificent edifice in the shape
of a Greek cross, with a rotunda sixty feet in diameter. Only one wing
has been completed, but this is spacious enough to furnish all needful
accommodation. The material is rough-hammered sandstone, of an intense
red.
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