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Show SALT LAKE VALLEY, & c. 87 run south to near Utah Lake the most southerly part of the valley visible from my stand- point, though it extends far beyond ; thence, along the eastern border of the valley, rose the majestic Wasach Mountains, through which we had passed, and towering up, almost above us, were the " Twin Peaks," their snow- crowned summits in remarkable con trast with the green fields of the valley and the fruit- trees of the city. Through the valley flowed the waters of Jordan from Utah Lake to the Dead Sea, and along its banks the fields of grain, just ripening for the harvest, dotted the surface of the plain before me. Beyond the river the deposits of alkali, shining under the sun's rays, looked like miniature lakes. But no description of mine will lead to a proper appreciation of the beauty of this landscape scene. And all this valley, twenty years ago, was a wild, sterile waste, which, by the persevering industry of the laborious Mormon, has been made to " blossom like the rose." Where formerly only sage- brush and grease- wood grew, and the mountaineer thought it would be madness to attempt to cultivate, there are now fields of wheat, oats and barley, yielding an aver age of forty bushels to the acre, while the mote fertile and better cultivated farms sometimes produce eighty and ninety. When the emigrant Mormons first entered the valley with a view to cultivating it, the old settlers in the vicinity said they would give them a hundred dollars for every bushel of grain they raised them. If the mountaineers had made good their offer the Mormons would now be an immensely wealthy people. They have certainly wrought a great change in the country. I award to them all credit for their enterprise and industry. Camp Douglas was established in 1862, by the then Col. Patrick E. Connor, of the Third California Volunteer Infan try, which regiment arrived in the valley in the fall of that year. Temporary quarters were built for the troops the first winter, and the following summer the present pt> st was erected. . Col. Connor was afterward made brigadier- gen eral, and assigned to the command of the district of Utah, |