it dashes over fragments of rock that have fallen from some
adjacent cliff, or where a wave, more aspiring than its fellows,
overreaches itself and breaks into a thin line of foam. Through a gap in
the ranges on the west, the line of the Great Desert is dimly visible.
The beach of the lake is marked by a broad belt of fine sand, the grains
of which are all globular. Along its upper margin is a rank growth of
reeds and salt grass. Swarms of tiny flies cover the surface of every
half-evaporated pool, and a few white sea-gulls are drifting on the
swells. Nowhere is there a sign of refreshing verdure except on the
distant mountainsides, where patches of green grass glow in the sunlight
among the vast fields of sage.

The buildings throughout the entire Territory are, almost without
exception, of adobe. The brick is of a uniform drab color, more pleasing
to the eye than the reddish hue of the adobes of New Mexico or the buff
tinge of many of those in California. In size it is about double that
commonly used in the States. The clay, also, is of very superior
quality. The principal stone building in the Territory is the Capitol,
at Fillmore, one hundred and fifty miles south of Salt Lake City. The
design of the architect is for a very magnificent edifice in the shape
of a Greek cross, with a rotunda sixty feet in diameter. Only one wing
has been completed, but this is spacious enough to furnish all needful
accommodation. The material is rough-hammered sandstone, of an intense
red.

The plan of Salt Lake City is an index to that of all the principal
towns. It is divided into squares, each side of which is forty rods
in length. The streets are more than a hundred feet wide, and are all
unpaved. There is not a single sidewalk of brick, stone, or plank. The
situation is well chosen, being directly at the foot of the southern
slope of a spur which juts out from the main Wahsatch range. Less than
twenty miles from the city, almost overshadowing it, are peaks which
rise to the altitude of nearly twelve thousand feet, from which the snow
of course never disappears. But during the summer months, when scarcely
a shower falls upon the valley, its drifts become dun-colored with dust
from the friable soil below, and present an aspect similar to that of
the Pyrenees at the same season. During most of the year, the rest of
the mountains which encircle the Valley are also capped with snow. The
residences of Young and Kimball are situated on