Few travellers, however much they may have to hurry, will pass through Utah without a flying visit to Salt Lake City, now a very different place from what it was when Captain Burton wrote his “City of the Saints.” The Mormon capital is not on the main line of the Pacific Railway, but is connected with it by a short branch of forty miles in length. Ogden is the “junction” for Salt Lake, and has a very tolerable station, with dining‐ rooms, book‐stands, and other conveniences. The last time the writer passed through this part of Utah in winter, the (spirit) thermometer on the platform at Ogden marked ‐16° Fahr., or 48° below the freezing‐point of water. On the first visit, the branch railway was barely commenced, and he proceeded to the “city” in a “mud‐waggon,” a kind of packing‐case on wheels—for he can hardly say on springs—which was driven at a furious rate. How many miles he travelled perpendicularly—in jolts—he knows not, but he was very tired on arrival at his destination. Yet the journey had much of interest in it. There was, for instance, almost all the way in sight, and sometimes within a few hundred yards, the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America—whose waters are said to be one‐third salt. This is probably an exaggeration, but its shores are white with a mineral efflorescence, and it took the Mormons years to irrigate much of the surrounding land, and thus literally wash the salty deposits out of it. The fresh water for the purpose had to be diverted and brought in hill‐ side ditches, &c., in many cases from a considerable distance. The result has repaid them, for the road from Ogden to Utah passes through several prosperous towns, and by scores of pleasant homesteads embowered in gardens and orchards of peach and apple trees, the marks of industrious farm cultivation being everywhere apparent. [Illustration: CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.] At one period there was some opposition among the Mormons to the construction of the trans‐continental railway through their territory, as they feared that influx of strangers which has actually come to pass. The late Brigham Young, however, was either more enlightened, or saw that it was no use fighting against the inevitable, and actually took contracts to assist in making the railroad, besides afterwards building the branch line to the city. It was cleverly said by the _New York Herald_ that “railway communications corrupt good Mormons,” to which President Young is stated to have replied that “he did not care anything for a religion which could not stand a railroad.” And in fact, up to a comparatively recent date, several thousand fresh recruits, principally from Great Britain and the northern nations of Europe, have been conveyed over it annually.