Curiosities of Science, Past and Present / A Book for Old and Young

by John Timbs

THE SALT LAKE OF UTAH.

Lieutenant Gunnison, who has surveyed the great basin of the Salt Lake, states the water to be about one-third salt, which it yields on boiling. Its density is considerably greater than that of the Red Sea. One can hardly get the whole body below the surface: in a sitting position the head and shoulders will remain above the water, such is the strength of the brine; and on coming to the shore the body is covered with an incrustation of salt in fine crystals. During summer the lake throws on shore abundance of salt, while in winter it throws up Glauber salt plentifully. “The reason of this,” says Lieutenant Gunnison, “is left for the scientific to judge, and also what becomes of the enormous amount of fresh water poured into it by three or four large rivers,—Jordan, Bear, and Weber,—as there is no visible effect.”