284 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



pure rock salt lies in a strata like coal or lime rock. We hope the 

 attention of the public and the Government will be turned to the 

 subject. There is a region lying in our immediate neighborhood, 

 almost unknown, containing more intrinsic wealth than any State in 

 the Union, and which would yield an annual income probably equal- 

 ling the entire revenue of the country. St. Louis Union. 



SALT LAKE OF UTAH. 



LT. STANSBURY in his report of the " Expedition to the Valley of 

 the Salt Lake" says: No one, without witnessing it, can form any 

 idea of the buoyant properties of this singular water. A man may 

 float, stretched at full length upon his back, having his head and neck, 

 both his legs to the knee, and both arms to the elbow, entirely out of 

 the water. If a sitting position be assumed, with the arms extended to 

 preserve the equilibrium, the shoulders will remain above the surface.. 

 The water is, nevertheless, extremely difficult to swim in, on account 

 of the constant tendency of the lower extremities to rise above it. 

 The brine, too, is so strong, that the least particle of it getting into 

 the eyes produces the most acute pain, and if accidentally swallowed 

 rapid strangulation must ensue. I doubt whether the most expert 

 swimmer could long preserve himself from drowning, if exposed to 

 the action of a rough sea. 



Upon one occasion a man of our party fell overboard into the lake, 

 and, although a good swimmer, the sudden immersion caused him to 

 take in a few mouthfuls of water before rising to the surface. The 

 effect was a violent paroxysm of strangling and vomiting, and the 

 man was unfit for duty for a day or two afterwards. He would inevit- 

 ably have been drowned, had he not received immediate assistance. Af- 

 ter bathing it is necessary to wash the skin with fresh water, to prevent 

 the deposition of salt arising from evaporation of the brine. Yet a bath 

 in the water is delightfully refreshing and invigorating. The analy- 

 sis of this water by Dr. L. D. Gale, has shown that it contains rather 

 more than 20 per cent, of pure cljoride of sodium, and not more than 

 2 per cent, of other salts, forming one of the purest and most concen- 

 trated brines known in the world. Its specific gravity was 1.17, but 

 this will slightly vary with the seasons, being doubtless affected by the 

 immense floods of fresh water which come rushing down into it from 

 the mountains in the spring, caused by the melting of the snows in 

 the gorges. The ancient extent of the lake must have been far 

 greater than its present limits indicate. As many as thirteen distinct 

 marks of ancient levels, successive terraces formed by ancient beaches, 

 the highest as much as two hundred feet above the plain, were count- 

 ed in one place. These appearances, comparable with the famous 

 " parallel roads " of Glenroy, in Scotland, would lead to the inference 

 that the Great Salt Lake was formerly vastly more extensive, stretch- 

 ing for hundreds of miles, studded with hu^e island, now formino- 



^j ^5 ^5 



the isolated mountains that rise amid the surrounding plains. The 

 immense miry flats, consisting of soft mud, traversed by rills of salt 



