History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

330
EDUCATION AND MANUFACTURES.
mountain air, with its invigorating embrace, the aged
and infirm regained the elasticity of a second youth.
Here was no rank vegetation, here were no stagnant
pools to generate miasma, no vapors redolent of
death, like those amid which the saints encamped on the
banks of the Missouri. In the valley were mineral
springs, the temperature of which ranged from 36° to
150° of Fahrenheit, some of them being prized for their
medicinal properties. From the warm spring 28 in the
vicinity of Salt Lake City, waters which varied between
98° in summer and 104° in winter 29 were conducted
by pipes to a large bath-house in the northern
part of the city. 30
28 The water was analyzed in 1851 by L. D. Gale. Its specific gravity was
found to be 1.0112; it was strongly impregnated with sulphur, and 100 parts
of water yielded 1.082 of solid matter. The specific gravity of the hot
spring in the same neighborhood was 1.013, and 100 parts yielded 1.1454 of
solid matter. Detailed analyses are given in Stansbury's Expedition to G. S.
Lake, i . 41 9-20. An analysis of the warm spring given by Joseph T. Kingsbury
in Contributor, iv. 59-60, differs somewhat from that of Gale. Further information
on these and other springs and mineral waters will be found in Id.,
iv. 86-9; Hist. Nev., 17, this series; Salt Lake Weekly Herald, July 29, 1880;
S. L. C. Tribune, Jan. 5, 1S78; Wheeler's Surveys, iii. 105-17; Hollister's Hesources
of Utah, 83-5; Hardy's Through Cities and Prairie, 121; Burton's
City of the Saints, 222; Sac. Union, Aug. 7, I860.
29 Contributor, iv. 59. One of the brethren, writing to Orson Hyde from
Salt Lake City, Sept. 10, 1850, says that the temperature stands, winter and
summer, at about 92°. Frontier Guardian, Jan. 8, 1851.
30 On Nov. 27, 1S50, the warm-spring bath-house was dedicated and opened
with prayer, festival, and dance. Utah Early Records, MS., 116.
The material for the preceding chapters has been gathered mainly from a
I
number of manuscripts furnished at intervals between 1S80 and 1885. As _
have already stated, to F. D. Richards I am especially indebted for his unremitting
effort in supplying data for this volume. The period between Feb.
1846 and the close of 1851—say between the commencement of the exodus
from Nauvoo and the opening of the legislature of Utah territory—is one of
which there are few authentic printed records. From Kane's The Mormons,
from Fullmer's Expulsion, and other sources, I have gleaned a little; but as
far as I am aware, no work has yet been published that gives, or pretends to
give, in circumstantial detail the" full story of this epoch in the annals of Mormonism.
In the Utah Early Records, M.S., I have been supplied with a brief
but full statement of all the noteworthy incidents from the entrance of Orson
Pratt and Erastus Snow into the valley of the Great Salt Lake to the close
of the year 1851. In the Narrative of Franklin D. Richards, MS.; the Reminiscences
of Mrs F. D. Richards, MS. ; Inner Facts of Social Life in Utah, MS.,
by the same writer; History of Brigham Young, MS., which is indeed a continuation
of the History of Joseph Smith, or the history of the church; Martin's
Narrative, MS.—I have been kindly furnished with many details that
it would have been impossible to obtain elsewhere. Some of them I have already
noticed, and others I shall mention in their place.
In Reminiscences of President John Taylor, MS., we have an account of the
migration from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters, the organization of the various