| Description |
Exploring Great Salt Lake walk6" We ascended the heights immediately behind the encamp- ment, a hill some 4OO ft high composed of irregular masses of tufa & limestone. Even at the summit there is every indication of the lake having at a period long past covered this hill, the limestone rocks being worn by the action of water into cavernous recesses. from various geological indications it is inferred that this lake now comparatively small once extended through this Valley & connected with the Utah."" Upon our return home we picked up sufficient quantity of a little green with several leaves springing from one stem, called "lambs-quarter," to make an agreeable addition to our supper. In the course of the afternoon Mr C. & myself had a bathe in the lake, which the warmth of the weather makes increasingly pleasant Monday May 6 The weather is warm & pleasant during the day but with the singular difference in the temperature at night which characterizes this country. While the Capt was absent for water, I made a camera view of this our sixth encampment, it made however from the point of view a bald pictureF4 While setting the instrument I speared with the leg of the tripod, a horned frog, the 62 The relationship between Hudson, Carrington, and Stansbury, while undoubtedly friendly, nevertheless followed the formal protocol of that time for "gentlemen." Carring- ton wrote, "took a stroll with the Captn & Mr. Hudson." Carrington, Journal, 5 May, p. 10. 63 Although the history and extent of Lake Bonneville have already been discussed in the introduction to this section (see pages 123-25), it is interesting to note that the much- despised Dr. Blake was probably the first observer to comprehend the significance of the mountainside terraces and to arouse the interest of Stansbury in the possibility of a large pre-historic body of water of which Great Salt Lake was the remnant. The captain explained in his Report that "thirteen distinct successive benches, or water-marks, were counted, which had evidently, at one timebeen washed by the lake, and must have been the result of its action continued for some time at each level. The highest of these is now about two hundred feet above the valley, which has itself been left by the lake, owing probably to gradual elevation occasioned by subterraneous causes. If this supposition be correct, and all appearances conspire to support it, there must have been here at some former period a vast inland sea, extending for hundreds of miles; and the isolated moun- tains which now tower from the flats, forming its western and south-western shores, were doubtless huge islands, similar to those which now rise from the diminished waters of the lake." Stansbury, Journal, vol. 3, 25 October; Stansbury, Report, p. 105. 64 Stansbury found fresh water in some small ponds formed by snow and rain which saved him a journey by night across the lake to the springs on Promontory. The sketch mentioned by Hudson is apparently no longer in existence. Stansbury, Report, p. 178. 150 |
