May-July 1877, Travels in Utah, etc. Image 8

Salt Lake cannot be called a beautiful town neither is [there] anything ugly or repulsive about it. Seen from the slopes of the Wasatch or old [lake] [trenches] it is seen to occupy the sloping grandly delta of [Mill] City Creek a fine hearty stream that came pouring from the snows of the [summit] through a majestic glacial Canon & it is just where this stream comes forth [wild] the open basin on the edge of the valley of the Jordan that the Mormons have built their town [This] Of all the strange groups of homes gardens & [ ] establishments this Zion of the new Saints is the strangest & the most pronounced in its distinguishing characteristics. At first sight in external appearance there is nothing very marked. Seen at a little distance it resembles a a field of [scattered] glacier boulders over grown with aspens such as one frequently meets in the upper valleys of the Cal Alps. Most of the houses are small & surrounded by orchards of apple & other fruit trees planted not so much for shade & [ornament] as for fruit, while here & there a large business block rises above those [farm or fur stores]https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/2123/thumbnail.jp