In the opening of his article the Vice-President made a rather ungenerous effort to belittle the achievements of the Mormon people, in redeeming the desert valleys of Utah. "For this," said he, "they claim great credit: and I would not detract one iota from all they are legitimately entitled to. It _was_ a desert when they first emigrated thither. They have made large portions of it fruitful and productive, and their chief city is beautiful in location and attractive in its gardens and shrubbery. But the solution of it all is in one word--_water_. What seemed to the eye a desert became fruitful when irrigated; and the mountains whose crests are clothed in perpetual snow, furnished, in the unfailing supplies of their ravines, the necessary fertilizer." This afforded Elder Taylor a fine opportunity for one of those poetic flights so frequently to be met with both in his writings and sermons. "Water!" he exclaimed. "_Mirabile dictu_! Here I must help Mr. C. out." "This wonderful little water nymph, after playing with the clouds on our mountain tops, frolicking with the snow and rain in our rugged gorges for generations, coquetting with the sun and dancing to the sheen of the moon, about the time the Mormons came here, took upon herself to perform a great miracle, and descending to the valley with a wave of her magic wand and the mysterious words, 'hiccory, diccory, dock,' cities and streets were laid out, crystal waters flowed in ten thousand rippling streams, fruit trees and shrubbery sprang up, gardens and orchards abounded, cottages and mansions were organized, fruits, flowers and grain in all their elysian glory appeared and the desert blossomed as the rose; and this little frolicking elf, so long confined to the mountains and water courses proved herself far more powerful than Cinderella or Aladdin. Oh! Jealousy, thou green-eyed monster! Can no station in life be protected from the shimmer of thy glamour? must our talented and honorable Vice-President be subjected to thy jaundiced touch? But to be serious, did water tunnel through our mountains, construct dams, canals and ditches, lay out our cities and towns, import and plant choice fruit-trees, shrubs and flowers, cultivate the land and cover it with the cattle on a thousand hills, erect churches, school-houses and factories, and transform a howling wilderness into a fruitful field and a garden? * * * * * * * Unfortunately for Mr. Colfax, it was Mormon polygamists who did it. * * * * * What if a stranger on gazing upon the statuary in Washington and our magnificent Capitol, and after rubbing his eyes were to exclaim, 'Eureka! it is only rock and mortar and wood!' This discoverer would announce that instead of the development of art, intelligence, industry and enterprise, its component parts were simply stone, mortar and wood. Mr. Colfax has discovered that our improvements are attributable to water!"