architecture. It has seats for 2,500 people, and is most remarkable for
the costly fresco work on the ceiling, which illustrates scenes from
Mormon history, including the alleged discovery of the golden plates and
their delivery to Prophet Smith by the Angel Moroni.

All around this remarkable city are sights of surpassing beauty. Great
Salt Lake itself ought to be regarded as one of the wonders of the
world. Although an inland sea, with an immense area intervening between
it and the nearest ocean, its waters are much more brackish and salty
than those of either the Atlantic or the Pacific, and its specific
gravity is far greater. Experts tell us that the percentage of salt and
soda is six times as great as in the waters of the Atlantic, and one
great advantage of living in its vicinity is the abundance of good, pure
salt, which is produced by natural evaporation on its banks. It would be
interesting, if it were possible, to explain why it is that the water is
so salty. Various reasons have been advanced from time to time for this
phenomenon, but none of them are sufficiently practical or tangible to
be of great interest to the unscientific reader.

It is just possible that this wonderful lake may in course of time
disappear entirely. Some years ago its width was over 40 miles on an
average, and its length was very much greater. Now it barely measures
100 miles from end to end and the width varies from 10 to 60 miles. In
the depth the gradual curtailment has been more apparent. At one time
the average depth was many hundred feet, and several soundings of 1,000
feet were taken, with the result reported, in sailors' parlance, of "No
bottom." At the present time the depth varies from 40 to 100 feet, and
appears to be lessening steadily, presumably because of the
extraordinary deposit of solid matter from the very dense waters with
which it is filled.