ar 
DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 
245 
PARLEYS CANYON AND PARK CITY, 
An interesting trip from Salt 
Lake City is that by way of the 
Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad through Parleys Canyon 
to Park City. This trip has much of interest to almost every trav- 
eler, for the route follows for a 
distance the old Mormon trail by 
which many of the immigrants reached Salt Lake City, thus giving 
it a historic interest, and it ends 
at the mining town of Park City, 
one of the great gold, silver, and lead camps in the State. 
The route lies south along the main line of the railroad to Roper, 
a distance of 24 miles from the station at Salt, Lake City. 
road turns to the east (left) and 
Here the 
pursues a nearly direct course to 
matter is found to be really great, 
amounting annually to more than 500,- 
000 tons.. Year by year and century by 
century the water which they pour into 
the lake is evaporated, but the dis- 
solyed solids can not escape in that 
the rivers are sabizcane by ‘the melting 
of snows i untains. Each year 
there is a en ll pom ning in summer, 
when the hot air rapidly absorbs the 
water, and continuing in autumn, when 
the rivers are smallest. This annual 
ag AS Ay 
us A ~ o] 
12 ~ ~ 
= oN / —— tc 
t ab ; a Li a ™® 
Bie Eh Pe Bouse rt 4 
god foeaks Ta Ee Dea a 
wi tebids bodich 4 boot bebab ola tak 3 
" Lid chek shal bk dd beled tks 
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 
Figure 62. Bie snag in level of Great Salt Lake from 1850 an a as determined by 
gage 
eadings or computed 
way and therefore remain. They have 
accumulated until the lake water is 
approximately saturated, holding 
nearly as much mineral matter as it 
mon salt and about 900,000,000 t 
Glauber’s salt, or sodium chat as 
“se as other mineral matte 
“ Another consequence of “a lack of 
outlet is that the lake varies from time 
to time in size. Whenever the gain 
from inflow is great cient the loss 
from evaporation the cestl of the water 
surface rises; when 'the loss is greater 
it falls. eae roe there is a rise, be- 
ginning , when the cool air 
has aoa power sc absorb moisture, 
and continuing through spring, when 
80697°—22——_17 
from precipitation r 
oscillation amounts on the average to 
about 16 inches, 
“In some years the rainfall and 
snowfall are greater than in others, 
and then the lake usually receives more 
water than it parts with, so that the 
surface is left higher than it was be- 
re.. In a series of wet years os lake 
level progressively rises; in a se of 
dry years it progressively mtr hii 
as the rainfall is eat perbacd 
tions of the la re conspicu 
Since. definite sareaniigs of ‘the sands 
fiv 
S 
crease. (See fig. 62.) 
levels of 1868 and 1877 were more than 
10 feet above the summer level of 1850, 
and those of 1908 and 1905 were 4 feet 
