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 2^ miles from the station at Salt Lake City. Here the 

 road turns to the east (left) and pursues a nearly direct course to 



maltter 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- 

 solved solids can not escape in that 



the rivers are swollen by the melting 

 of snows in the mountains. Each year 

 there is a fall, beginning in summer, 

 when the hot air rapidly absorbs the 

 water, and continuing in autumn, when 

 the rivers are smalles't. This annual 



1650 1660 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 



Figure 62. — Fluctuation in level of Great Salt Lake from 1850 to 1914, as determined by 

 gage readings or computed from precipitation records. 



way and therefore remain. They have 

 accumulated until the lake water is 

 approximately saturated, holding 

 nearly as much mineral matter as it 

 can retain in solution. The lake con- 

 tains over 5,000,000,000 tons of com- 

 mon salt and about 900,000,000 tons of 

 Glauber's salt, or sodium sulphate, as 

 well as other mineral matter. 



" Another consequence of the lack of 

 outlet is that the lake varies from time 

 to time in size. Whenever the gain 

 from inflow is greater than the loss 

 from evaporation the level of the water 

 surface rises ; when the loss is greater 

 It falls. Each year there is a rise, be- 

 ginning in winter, when the cool air 

 has little power to absorb moisture, 

 and continuing through spring, when 

 80697°— 22 17 



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- 

 fore. In a series of wet years the lake 

 level progressively rises ; in a series of 

 dry years it progressively falls ; and 

 as the rainfall is irregular the fluctua- 

 tions of the lake are conspicuous. 

 Since definite knowledge of the lake 

 began in 1850 there have been five 

 periods of increase and four of de- 

 crease. (See fig. 62.) The summer 

 levels of 1868 and 1877 were more than 

 10 feet above the sununer level of 18.50, 

 and those of 1903 and 1905 were 4 feet 



