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Show BOUTfc ABOUND THB SOUTH END OF SALT LAKE. 265 the Soda Springs before reaching Goose Creek, and would, from all the information I have been able to collect, pass over much more eligible ground. From the city to the crossing of Beai River and the Malade, ( a distance of eighty miles,) I know the ground, from personal observation, to be unexceptionable. Thence, ' since the trace pursues a course as far south of the breaks of the northern rim of the basin as it is possible, on account of the lake, it is fair to presume that the inequalities of the ground will be much less than by the proposed route from the Soda Springs. Any line from the Wahsatch Mountains to the valley of th6 Humboldt, north of the Salt Lake, cannot but prove exceedingly expensive, fbr the reasons just given. But by passing south of it, a line can, I think, be found which would be comparatively free from this objection. After reaching the Utah Valley by the Timpanogas cafion, the road might either be carried to Salt Lake City on the eastern side of the Jordan Valley, and thence to the south shore of the lake at Black Rock; or it might cross the Jordan at the traverse range near its cafion,. follow down the western side of the same valley, and doubling the south extremity of the Oquirrh Mountain, reach the south shore of the lake at the same point, viz. Black Rock. From Black Rock the route would follow near to the shore of the lake as far as Strong's Knob, unless further examination should discover a practicable passage through the range of which it is the northern extremity, and which forms the western boundary of Sjfring Valley. The route thus far from Salt Lake City would be over an absolutely horizontal plain. From Strong's Knob, the same level desert plain extends westward for seventy or eighty miles, to the Pilot Peak range of hills, which, following the general law of the great mountain ranges in this region, extends from north to south. Having iHyself traversed this desert from the northern end of the Lake to Pilot Peak, and thence to Black Rock on its extreme . southern shore, I can speak with confidence as to its character. It is one uniform, level plain, without verdure, and presents ground for a road that is absolutely faultless. Westward of the range referred to I have not penetrated; but, reasoning from the structure of similar ridges in this part of the basin,- which are generally short, abrupt, and disconnected protrusions above the general level of the country, having broad level plains between them,- little doubt is entertained that a passage can, without much difficulty, be traced through to the heads of tho |