The Glacial Developments Of These Superb Ranges Are Sharply Sculptured
Peaks And Crests, With Ample Wombs Between Them Where The
Ancient
snows of the glacial period were collected and transformed into ice,
and ranks of profound shadowy canyons, while moraines
Commensurate
with the lofty fountains extend into the valleys, forming far the
grandest series of glacial monuments I have yet seen this side of the
Sierra.
In beginning this letter I meant to describe the city, but in the
company of these noble old mountains, it is not easy to bend one's
attention upon anything else. Salt Lake cannot be called a very
beautiful town, neither is there anything ugly or repulsive about it.
From the slopes of the Wahsatch foothills, or old lake benches, toward
Fort Douglas it is seen to occupy the sloping gravelly delta of City
Creek, a fine, hearty stream that comes pouring from the snows of the
mountains through a majestic glacial canyon; and it is just where this
stream comes forth into the light on the edge of the valley of the
Jordan that the Mormons have built their new Jerusalem.
At first sight there is nothing very marked in the external appearance
of the town excepting its leafiness. Most of the houses are veiled
with trees, as if set down in the midst of one grand orchard; and seen
at a little distance they appear like a field of glacier boulders
overgrown with aspens, such as one often meets in the upper valleys of
the California Sierra, for only the angular roofs are clearly visible.
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