The water of the present lake is so salt that in every four quarts there is one quart of salt, and the preparation of this commodity by a process of evaporating the water in ponds has become an important industry. The water is the strongest kind of brine and it is impossible for a bather to sink in it. One floats about upon it almost as lightly as wood does upon ordinary water. After bathing it is necessary to wash in fresh water to remove the salt from the body.
The dry bed of the former Lake Bonneville stretches far to the south and west of the present lake, and forms one of the most barren and arid regions in the United States. It is sometimes called the Great American Desert.
Why is the lake receding now? Some people think that the climate is growing still more arid, and that the lake will eventually disappear. Others think that its shrinkage is the result of irrigation, for a large part of the water from the streams which supply it is now taken out and turned upon the land. There is still another reason which may account for the low water. The lake is known to rise and fall during a series of wet and dry years. When first mapped, in the middle of the last century, it was about as low as it is now. Then it gradually rose for a number of years and lately has again been falling.
The story of Great Salt Lake has been much more complicated than the statement given above, but this is sufficient for our purpose.
Irrigation has made a garden spot of a large part of the old bed of Lake Bonneville, but much of the beauty and attractiveness of this region would be lost if the present lake should give place to a bed of glistening salt. Let us hope that it will remain as it is.
[THE SKAGIT RIVER]
The Skagit is not one of the great rivers of the world, for very little of its course lies outside the boundaries of a single state. It is, however, none the less interesting. Few rivers with a length of only one hundred and fifty miles present so great a variety of instructive features. We shall certainly learn more from a study of the Skagit than from many a better known and more pretentious river.
Innumerable torrents, fed by the glaciers of the Cascade Range, pour down the rocky slopes and lose themselves in the wooded cañons below. The cañon streams, of much greater size, flow less impetuously over gentler slopes, and are frequently blocked by boulders and logs. These streams unite in one broad, deep river, which moves on quietly to its resting-place in Puget Sound. Its name, Skagit, is of Indian origin and means wild cat.
By following the Skagit River and a tributary stream, one can go from the bare and snowy summit of the Cascade Range down through dense forests, and come out at last upon a magnificent delta, where a fertile plain is slowly but steadily encroaching upon the waters of the sound. What contrasting scenes are presented along the few short miles of the course of the river! A trip from its source to its mouth will be worth all the trouble it involves, although the trail is often disagreeably wet and sometimes dangerous.
There is no grander scenery in the United States than that of the Cascade Range; nor are there more dense forests than those found upon its western slope. The range is hidden in almost perpetual clouds and storms, and they are fortunate who can reach its summit upon a pleasant day.