Great Salt Lake

an inland lake in the northwestern part of Utah. It is about eighty miles long and from twenty to thirty miles wide. The surface is about 4,200 feet above sea level; yet the lake has no apparent outlet. Judging from beaches that rise, terrace after terrace, the lake was formerly much larger than it is now and discharged its water into the Columbia. At that time its greatest depth must have been about 1,100 feet. It is now not over 850 feet in depth. Large portions of the old shore have been irrigated and are now productive gardens, orchards, meadows, and fields. The water is salty,--so heavy with brine, in fact, that a person bathing is lighter than the water and cannot sink. The lake rises and falls with changes in the seasons. The salt in solution varies accordingly, being by weight from a seventh to a fifth of the whole. The waters are too salty for fish and are nearly without life. West of Ogden the Southern Pacific has expended $4,000,000 in constructing a long trestle bridge across the north arm of the lake. The bridge stands on 38,000 piles eight feet above water. The bridge shortens the line forty-four miles. See Utah