It is divided into squares, each side of which is forty rods
in length. The streets are more than a hundred feet wide, and are all
unpaved. There is not a single sidewalk of brick, stone, or plank. The
situation is well chosen, being directly at the foot of the southern
slope of a spur which juts out from the main Wahsatch range. Less than
twenty miles from the city, almost overshadowing it, are peaks which
rise to the altitude of nearly twelve thousand feet, from which the snow
of course never disappears. But during the summer months, when scarcely
a shower falls upon the valley, its drifts become dun-colored with dust
from the friable soil below, and present an aspect similar to that of
the Pyrenees at the same season. During most of the year, the rest of
the mountains which encircle the Valley are also capped with snow. The
residences of Young and Kimball are situated on almost the highest
ground within the city-limits, and the land slopes gradually down from
them to the south, east, and west. This inclination suggested the mode
of supplying the city with water. A mountain-brook, pure and cold,
bubbling from under snow-drifts, is guided from this highland down
the gently sloping streets in gutters adjoining both the sidewalks.
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