140 SOIL — WATEK — IRKIGATION. 



great to entitle the present Territory of Utah to demand from the 

 General Government admission into the Union as one of the sove- 

 reign States of the confederacy, and thus to secure to themselves 

 unmolested the right to carry out in practice the peculiar princi- 

 ples of their creed. That their wishes in this respect will be 

 shortly realized may be considered certain. 



Let us now look for a moment at the sources which can be made 

 available for the sustenance of a population so numerous as it is 

 thus confidently anticipated will ere long be congregated within 

 the limits of the «' Basin State." Situated so far inland, without 

 water communication with any part of the continent, and isolated 

 by the very nature of the surrounding regions, it will readily be seen 

 that the new State must necessarily depend, in a great measure, for 

 its support, upon means within itself. Agriculture and the rais- 

 ing of stock must therefore be the principal basis of its pros- 

 perity. For both these purposes the country which they have set- 

 tled is, fortunately, well adapted. The land available for the first 

 of these objects, though limited in extent when compared with the 

 vast deserts which intervene, is still ample for the support of a large, 

 though not very dense population. Owing to the almost total ab- 

 sence of rain, from May to October, the dependence of the farmer 

 must be entirely upon irrigation. The means for this are supplied 

 from the reservoirs of snow which accumulate in the gorges of the 

 mountains, furnishing, during the whole of the summer, abundant 

 and never-failing streams, which assume in some instances the 

 character of rivers of considerable magnitude. 



The soil, formed chiefly from the disintegration of the feldspa- 

 thic rock, mixed with detritus of the limestone, of which the 

 mountains are principally composed, is of the most fertile cha- 

 racter. Owing to its loose and porous texture, it absorbs water 

 very readily and in large quantities. Consequently, the streams 

 which come rushing down the mountain-sides, when they reach the 

 plain below, begin to dwindle into insignificant rivulets, and soon 

 sink and are entirely lost. Many never reach the base of the 

 mountain at all, being absorbed by the soil ; and even in the islands 

 of the lake there are to be found, near the summits, roaring tor- 

 rents, which, ere making half the descent of the mountain, so com- 

 pletely disappear as to leave not even a dry bed or channel to 

 show they had ever reached the water below. Cultivation is there- 

 fore circumscribed within very narrow limits, being generally re- 

 stricted to a strip of from one to two miles wide, along the base 



