NUMBER TWO.
[Special Correspondence of the Cleveland Leader.]
Salt Lake City, October 27, 1870.
As I arrived here last night after dark I could form but an imperfect idea of the location and appearance of the city. Taking an early start this morning 1 am surprised at the beauty and impressed with the grandeur of the surrounding scenery. The city is located in the center of a broad basin, the Wahsatch Mountains on the north and east, a spur of the same range extending across the southern horizon—on the west, perhaps ten miles distant, is the great Salt Lake, a body of water eighty miles long by forty to fifty in width, and so salty that it is literally a “dead sea.” No living thing can be found in its waters. Lofty promontories on the further side jut out into the lake and bound our view in that direction. The city covers a space of three by four miles, and is laid out in squares of ten acres. The squares are subdivided into eight lots of about one and a quarter acres each. Water is brought from the mountains on the north and flows through every street on either side. It is pure and cold, and never fails in the dryest season. Double rows of shade trees line the streets and the water is conducted into the gardens and orchards. This is the secret: of the wonderful fruitfulness of this land, which, without artificial irrigation, would be an arid desert. When the Mormons came down through the canon of the Wahsatch into this valley, twenty-three years ago, it was
