GREAT SALT LAKE.
Fredonia, N. Y.
What is the extent of Great Salt Lake? Has it any outlet? Are the waters salt enough to make good salt? Is Salt Lake City on the margin of the lake, or some distance off? Is it navigable?
Answer.—Great Salt Lake is a remarkable body of water, in some respects the most remarkable in the world. Like the Dead Sea and the Aral Sea, in Asia, it has no outlet. Its extent is given variously by different authors. One explanation of this may be the generally conceded fact that the rainfall of the region between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada is increasing, and the average level of Salt Lake seems to be steadily rising, so whereas one authority states the length of the lake as about ninety miles and the breadth as from twenty to thirty-five miles, another says it is seventy miles long and forty-five broad. One says its area is about 3,200 square miles, and another says it is between 3,000 and 4,000 square miles. One says it is about 4,200 feet above sea level, while another says it is 4,250 feet above, and still rising, and a still later statement sets it at 4,260 feet above tidewater. One gives the mean depth at 12 feet, and another at about twenty feet. Its maximum depth is variously given at sixty feet and seventy-eight feet. It contains numerous rocky islands, the longest of which, Antelope, is fifteen miles long. Some of these islands are used as sheep pastures. The Bear, the Weber, and the Jordan rivers empty into this lake, and are for the most part absorbed by the sandy plain or evaporated by the dry air of the Great Fremont Basin. Only the Bear River is navigable, and that near its mouth. A line of steamers plies between Corinne, on the north shore, and Black Rock, on the south. Its waters contain about 20 per cent of common salt; some salt is manufactured from this natural brine, and there is no doubt that in time this industry will develop here into great importance. Unlike the Dead Sea, this lake abounds with animal life, insects, shrimps, etc., but not, like the Aral Sea, with fish. The United States Fish Commission has undertaken the experiment of stocking it with certain salt-water fish, and with some prospect of success. Salt Lake City is about eleven miles from the lake in a straight line, and fifteen miles by the traveled road.
INDIAN EDUCATION.
Carlinville, Ill.
An Indian-hater in this neighborhood asserts very positively that the attempts made to educate the Indians are all time and money thrown away. What figures can you give us to disprove this assertion?
A Reader.