136 EXPLOEATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 



ants. The houses are of adobes (sun-dried bricks), and in some instances of logs. The 

 appearance of the town is rather indifferent, and indicates no great thrift." 



" American Fork settlement (Lake City) has some 50 houses and probably some 

 500 inhabitants. The houses are generally adobe, quite small, and of but one story, 

 all indicating a poor and shiftless population." 



"Battle Creek settlement contains probably 60 houses, all small, mean-looking 

 adobe huts, and the population is about 600. A very common mode of building in 

 these towns is to take the earth from the foundation of the building to make the adobes, 

 and thus have one story below and one above ground. The generality of the houses 

 is far below in character what obtains among the poorest of our population in the States. 

 The roofs are generally of mud, and give frequent evidences of tumbling in; and the 

 doors and windows all indicate penury and an inattention to cleanliness." 



"Provo is a city in the valley of Lake Utah, about 5 miles south of the Timpan- 

 ogos Canon. It derives its name, according to Mr. Bullock, from a Frenchman of that 

 name from Saint Louis, who was the tirst white man that ever came from Fort Bridger 

 by way of the Timpanogos Valley.* The Timpanogos River has been, therefore, 

 known among the inhabitants as the Provo River, and hence the origin of the name 

 of the town near. It is much better built than the towns I have described. The guide 

 who lives there, says it contains about 400 houses and probably 600 families, 7 to a 

 family, or about 4,200 inhabitants in the whole town; to me rather a large estimate. 

 It, like the other towns I have seen in Utah, is built principally of adobes; the houses, 

 however, being generally small. Each town has a large building, which they call the 

 tabernacle, and which is devoted to religious and secular purposes; the theater, I 

 noticed, being held in one of them. The main street of Provo is probably eight rods 

 wide, the others six. This town, like all the others I have described, is laid out in 

 regular squares. They are all inhabited by farmers, who cultivate the land contiguous 

 to the town, and the yards are filled with the implements of husbandry, stacks of wheat 

 and hay; and in the evening, during harvest, there is to be seen a constant succession 

 of wagons, filled with the produce of the field, and cattle driven in for security. The 

 inhabitants send out their cattle in herds to pasture, the herdsman passing in the morn- 

 ing from one end of the town to the other, and as he does so, sounding his horn as a 

 signal for the owners to turn their stock into the general herd. The charge is about 

 two cents per animal per day." 



"from the mouth of timpanogos canon to the t 

 timpanogos and silver creek, 



"The Timpanogos River is a splendid dashing mountain-stream of pure water of 

 a width ranging in places from 30 to 100 feet, and generally about 2 feet deep. Large 

 trout are found in it. Its bottom is rocky. Its sources are in the Uintah Mountains, 

 from which it flows for about half its length (which probably is 60 miles) in a westerly 



* The name of this person was probably Pro-vost (pronounced Provo), and is doubtless the same referred to in Mr. 

 Anderson's letter, inserted in note (E) of Introduction. 



tFor an interesting account of the Timpanogos Riv-i v :i l ,-.. . Weber River Valley, and White River Valley, see 

 ;en Great Salt Lake City and Green River, in the spring of 1854. 



