Greater Britain: a record of travel in English-speaking countries during 1866 and 1867 . ult ofthe varying hardness of the strata; but, near Black Rock, onthe overland track, I discovered that where the terrace lineshave crossed the mountain precipices, they are continuedmerely by deep stains upon the rocks. The inference is thatwithin extremely recent, if not historic times, the water hasstood at these levels from two to three hundred feet abovethe present Great Salt Lake City, itself 4300 feet above thesea. Three days journey farther west, on the Reeses RiverRange, I detected similar stains.
Greater Britain: a record of travel in English-speaking countries during 1866 and 1867 . ult ofthe varying hardness of the strata; but, near Black Rock, onthe overland track, I discovered that where the terrace lineshave crossed the mountain precipices, they are continuedmerely by deep stains upon the rocks. The inference is thatwithin extremely recent, if not historic times, the water hasstood at these levels from two to three hundred feet abovethe present Great Salt Lake City, itself 4300 feet above thesea. Three days journey farther west, on the Reeses RiverRange, I detected similar stains. Was the whole basin ofthe Rocky Mountains—here more than a thousand milesacross—once filled with a huge sea, of which the two Sierraswere the shores, and the Wasatch, Goshoot, Waroja, ToiAbbe, Humboldt, Washoe, and a hundred other ranges, therocks and isles ? The Great Salt Lake is but the largest^fmany such. I saw one on Mirage Plains that is Salter thanits greater fellow. Carson Sink is evidently the bed of a small-er, bitter lake ; and there are salt pools in dozens scattered. Nameless Alps. 139 through Ruby and Smoky valleys. The Great Salt Lake it-self is sinking year by year, and the sage-brush is gainingupon the alkali desert throughout the Grand Plateau. Allthese signs point to the rapid drying-up of a great sea, owingto an alteration of climatic conditions. In the Odd Fellows Library at San Francisco I found amap of North America, signed John Harvis, , anddated 1605, which shows a great lake in the country nowcomprised in the Territories of Utah and Dacotah, with awidth of fifteen degrees, and is named Thongo or is not likely that this inland sea is a mere exaggeration ofthe present Great Salt Lake, because the views of that sheetof water are everywhere limited by islands in such a way asto give to the eye the effect of exceeding narrowness. It ispossible that the Jesuit fathers, and other Spanish travellersfrom California, may have looked from the Ut
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade186, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
