Salt Lake

The lake from which the city takes its name is about twenty miles distant from the latter, by a good road acress the level valley-bottom. Artistically viewed, it is one of the loveliest sheets of water I ever saw, - bluer than the intensest blue of the ocean, and practically as impressive, since looking from the southern shore, you see only a water-horizon. This view, however, is broken by a magnificent mountainous island, rising, I should think, seven or eight hundred feet from the water, half a dozen miles from shore, and apparently as many miles in circuit. The density of the lake brine has been under- instead of over-stated. I swam out into it for a considerable distance, then lay upon my back on rather than in, the water, and suffered the breeze to waft me landward again. I was blown to a spot where the lake was only four inches deep, without grazing my back, and did not know I had got within my depth again until I depressed my hand and touched bottom!