While we were reveling in this rare, ungarish grandeur, turning from
range to range, studying the darkening sky and listening to the still
small voices of the flowers at our feet, some of the denser clouds
came down, crowning and wreathing the highest peaks and dropping long
gray fringes whose smooth linear structure showed that snow was
beginning to fall. Of these partial storms there were soon ten or
twelve, arranged in two rows, while the main Jordan Valley between
them lay as yet in profound calm. At 4:30 p.m. a dark brownish cloud
appeared close down on the plain towards the lake, extending from the
northern extremity of the Oquirrh Range in a northeasterly direction
as far as the eye could reach. Its peculiar color and structure
excited our attention without enabling us to decide certainly as to
its character, but we were not left long in doubt, for in a few
minutes it came sweeping over the valley in a wild uproar, a torrent
of wind thick with sand and dust, advancing with a most majestic
front, rolling and overcombing like a gigantic sea-wave. Scarcely was
it in plain sight ere it was upon us, racing across the Jordan, over
the city, and up the slopes of the Wahsatch, eclipsing all the
landscapes in its course--the bending trees, the dust streamers, and
the wild onrush of everything movable giving it an appreciable
visibility that rendered it grand and inspiring.

This gale portion of the storm lasted over an hour, then down came the
blessed rain and the snow all through the night and the next day, the
snow and rain alternating and blending in the valley. It is long
since I have seen snow coming into a city. The crystal flakes falling
in the foul streets was a pitiful sight.

Notwithstanding the vaunted refining influences of towns, purity of
all kinds--pure hearts, pure streams, pure snow--must here be exposed