MOUNT NEBO, WASATCH RANGE.—Mount Nebo is about sixty miles almost due south of Salt Lake City, and about twenty-five miles south of Provo. Its snow-covered summit may be seen for a hundred miles or more, for the atmosphere of this region is so clear that the vision has almost an unlimited range. This mountain, as well as many other points and places in Utah, was named by the Mormons on account of its fancied likeness to its celebrated Old Testament namesake. It is one of the finest mountain scenes in the whole Western country.
PULPIT ROCK, WEBER CAÑON.
Church Buttes and The Witches present a strange conglomeration in uniting religion with superstition, for they appeal to the two strongest attributes of human nature. From the west the “Witches” first come into view, a group of fantastically-wrought images that appear like chaotic creations, the rock-carved dreams of distempered boyhood, the feverish personations of old Granny Bunch’s tales. There they stand, like an assemblage of weazened and wrinkled wizards plotting some scheme of diabolism, though everlastingly anchored to the eternal hillsides, where, like Giant Grim, they can do nothing more than make faces at passers-by.
Church Buttes are more harmonious in their outlines, as well as massive in their proportions, simulating as they do cathedrals and meeting houses, some with towers and spires, and others of less ostentatious architecture, but all bearing some intimation of a worshipful purpose. But these curious efforts of nature are not confined to the cañons named, nor a limited district, for directly north of Green River, and reached by a Government trail leading to Yellowstone Park, are what are known as the Bridges and Washakie Basins of Bad Lands, a region that is remarkable for its capricious formations, the results of upheavals, glacial scouring, and erosions by wind and water. This district of marvelous forms is a part of Fremont county, covering an area of twenty by twenty-five miles. The country is a mixture of limestones, shales and calcareous sandstones, with occasional green clays, marls, and whitish sand, the latter often drifting into long dunes. Towards the south end of this dry valley there is a chain of bluff escarpments, extending about fourteen miles, and it is in these escarpments that the most remarkable examples of Bad Land erosions are to be found. The ridges rise 300 feet above the valley and present a series of abrupt, nearly vertical faces, worn into innumerable architectural forms, with detached pillars standing like monoliths some distance from the walls. Along the dry ravines the same curiously picturesque forms occur, so that a view of the whole front of the escarpment, with its salient angles, bears a striking resemblance to the ruins of a fortified city. Enormous masses project from the main wall, the stratifications of cream, gray and green sands are traced across their nearly vertical fronts like courses of immense masonry, and every face is scoured by innumerable narrow, sharp cuts, which are worn into the soft material from top to bottom of the cliff, offering narrow galleries which give access for a considerable distance into this labyrinth of natural fortresses. At a little distance, these sharp incisions seem like the spaces between series of pillars, and the whole aspect of the region is that of a line of Egyptian structures. Among the most interesting bodies are those of the detached outliers, points of spurs, or isolated hills, which are mere relics of the beds that formerly covered the whole valley. These monoliths, often reaching 100 feet in height, rise out of the smooth surface of a level plain of clay, and are sculptured into the most surprising forms, surmounted by domes and ornamented by many buttresses and jutting pinnacles.
OLDEST HOUSE IN SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH.—Whether or not this is actually the oldest house in Salt Lake City might be a disputed question, for when it comes to ancient things, or to the oldest inhabitant, we generally find that there are several claimants for the honor. But we can say with sincerity and truth that this is one of the oldest representative houses of the Mormon capital. It is one of the better class, erected immediately after the city was laid out, and it has been occupied continuously ever since. The house and its surroundings have an air of quiet restfulness that is exceedingly inviting, and a tired man could sleep like a new-born infant under the board roof with the rain pattering down upon it.