The architecture is Elizabethan. Above a porch in front is the figure
of a recumbent lion, hewn in sandstone. On each of the sides, which
overlook the gardens, ten little windows project from the roof
just above the eaves. The whole square is surrounded by a wall of
cobblestones and mortar, ten or twelve feet in height, strengthened by
buttresses at intervals of forty or fifty feet. Massive plank gates bar
the entrances. In one corner is the Tithing-Office, where the faithful
render their reluctant tribute to the Lord. Only the swift city-creek
intervenes between this square and Kimball's, which is encompassed by a
similar wall. His buildings have no pretensions to architectural merit,
being merely rough piles of adobe scattered irregularly all over the
grounds.
The Temple Square is in the immediate neighborhood, and is of the same
size. It is inclosed by a wall even more massive than the others,
plastered and divided into panels. Near its southwestern corner stands
the Tabernacle, a long, one-storied building, with an immense roof,
containing a hall which will hold three thousand people. There the
Mormon religious services are conducted during the winter months; but
throughout the summer the usual place of gathering to listen to the
sermons is in "boweries," so called, which are constructed by planting
posts in the ground and weaving over them a flat roof of willow-twigs.
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