snow-white granite. So conspicuous and massive is this building, that it
can be seen from the mountains fifty and even a hundred miles away.

The Tabernacle, which is in the same square as the Temple, and just west
of it, is aptly described by Mr. P. Donan as one of the architectural
curios of the world. It looks like a vast terrapin back, or half of a
prodigious egg-shell cut in two lengthwise, and is built wholly of iron,
glass and stone. It is 250 feet long, 150 feet wide, and 100 feet high
in the center of the roof, which is a single mighty arch, unsupported by
pillar or post, and is said to have but one counterpart on the globe.
The walls are 12 feet thick, and there are 20 huge double doors for
entrance and exit. The Tabernacle seats 13,462 people, and its acoustic
properties are so marvelously perfect that a whisper or the dropping of
a pin can be heard all over it. The organ is one of the largest and
grandest toned in existence, and was built of native woods, by Mormon
workmen and artists, at a cost of $100,000. It is 58 feet high, has 57
stops, and contains 2,648 pipes, some of them nearly as large as the
chimneys of a Mississippi River steamer.

The choir consists of from 200 to 500 trained voices, and the music is
glorious beyond description. Much of it is in minor keys, and a strain
of plaintiveness mingles with all its majesty and power. All the seats
are free, and tourists from all parts of the world are to be found among
the vast multitudes that assemble at every service. Think of seeing the
Holy Communion broken bread, and water from the Jordan River, instead of
wine, administered to from 6,000 to 8,000 communicants at one time! One
can just fancy the old-time Mormon elders marching in, each followed by
his five or twenty-five wives and his fifty or a hundred children.

Close by is Assembly Hall, also of white granite, and of Gothic