244 Reminiscences of 



large quantities of fresh water from several streams, 

 and the natural drainage of a large basin with no 

 visible outlet, it has been of late years constantly 

 receding, and in my remembrance has diminished 

 its extent by over ten miles. It is comparatively 

 shallow, its extreme depth being but sixty feet. 



Many have supposed that this lake had a subter- 

 ranean outlet but its shrinkage is most likely occa- 

 sioned by evaporation. In my memory Lake Tulan 

 (Tulare) a large body of fresh water in Southern Cali- 

 fornia, covering several square miles, has about dis- 

 appeared by evaporation, and now most abundant 

 harvests are being grown over the old lake bed. 

 In the earliest days of California this lake was de- 

 scribed as covering over one hundred square miles. 



Lately the Union Pacific Railroad has made a con- 

 siderable reduction in its route by building a trestle 

 bridge of over twenty miles in length across a shal- 

 low part of the lake. The evidence unmistakably 

 upon the neighboring mountains shows that in some 

 remote period this lake covered a very much larger 

 area, probably six or eight times more than at present, 

 and had a depth of five or six hundred feet. Three 

 ver}'' distinct benches, or water levels of prominent 

 extent, are shown on the east side of the lake upon 

 the mountain sides, where the waters of the lake must 

 have washed for long periods on three clearly shown 

 levels, separated from each other by from one hundred 

 to two hundred feet. These levels are distinctly 

 visible to the passengers from the passing railroad. 



From Utah Lake I passed on by the railroad to 

 Ogden, which is now, but was not then, the connect- 

 ing place of the Union Pacific with the Central Pacific 



