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Show UTAH ARGENTIFERA. 17? yellow rays of the coming sun. The line of telegraph poles seemed to rise out of the ground far ahead ; the morning note and flutter of a sage- hen were occasionally heard, and my horse gave a loud neigh, as if to attest his joy that the tiresome night was gone. His neigh was answered by another, and I soon came upon a camp of Mormons, who had, the previous day and night, made the fifty- five mile drive from the last spring on the other side to Simpson Spring. From them I got a biscuit and cup of coffee, and after watering and resting my horse at Simpson, made the ten miles to Davis's place by 10 A. M. At first I thought myself in good condition, but in an hour or two, my anxiety being over, I felt that ninety miles walking and riding in twenty- seven hours, without food, had produced effects. How my bones ached! But nature does wonders for a man in that dry, bracing air, and in twenty- four hours I was myself again. I have said that the Salt Lake Basin is the largest and most im-portant of the various subdivisions of the Great Basin ; the finest view of it as a whole can be obtained from the deck of a steamer on the lake. This is how the most pleasant excursion in Utah, and our cele-bration of Independence Day, 1875, on the lake, will long be held in delightful remembrance. The steamer " General Garfield," formerly called the " City of Corinne," made two and three hour trips all day; first to the eastern shore of Stansbury's Island, then to the western shore of Antelope, and again through the deep soundings between. Stansbury's Island lies eighteen miles from the landing, and is about ten miles long from north to south. We went on board at 10.30 A. M., and at fifteen minutes after twelve grazed the shore of the island, hav-ing a strong wind to contend with. But nobody cared to land, as the island is nothing but a vast red and . yellow rock rising to a height of 2,000 feet above the water. Antelope or Church Island lies some fifteen miles east of the former, and is sixteen miles long, nine miles wide in the center, and rises 3,000 feet above the lake surface, its sum-mit being 7,250 feet above the sea. Remember that the water on which we were sailing is higher than any mountain in Virginia or Pennsylvania. From the deck of a steamer on the lake, the view eastward includes two hundred miles of the Wasatch Range, its summits every- where glistening with the remains of last winter's snow, not yet yielding to the July sun. Westward the nearer Cedar Mountains obstruct the view, but here and there through the lowest gaps can be seen glisten-ing from afar the white summits of the Goshoot and Deep Creek Ranges. Between the two are Granite and Dugway Ranges, but so 12 |
