A Legend of the Wasatch

A Typical Glacial Lake, on the Side of Lone Peak A LEGEND OF THE WASATCH Told by the Granite of Bell's Canyon By Alfred Lambourne Years ago when the one who writes this — and he was then a pale-faced boy in a big city of the Middle states, by which ran the rapid waters of the Mississippi, and around which were levels covered by primeval woods — he looked upon a photograph of the Wasatch moun- tains. Not that he then knew that white-crested range of peaks was called the Wasatch — the Indians' Mountains of Snow — what he then knew was that the mountains bounded the eastern side of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake; that the picture had come across "the plains" in a mail coach, and that, also, some day, he would follow the setting sun and look upon those heights as actualities, not as a picture in the far-distant Deseret. "To the Rocky mountains," had been the boast of the pale-faced boy to his street companions. And, later, he did "whack bulls," and in due time arrived where from the benchland to the northward of the City of the Saints, he beheld at last the Wasatch

A LEGEND OF THE WASATCH 209 range, the vast mountain -wall, vague, beautiful, grand, in the mellow, golden light of early autumn. Ah, how long ago that seems! Long ago, I mean, when con- sidered in the events of life; when one bids the mind leap across the intervening years, then it seems only as yesterday. And that view of the Wasatch, be it told, was above a stretch of apricot, peach and apple trees, for then the City of the Saints was a place of orchards more than it is now, and near our covered wagons — their long journey done — was trellis hung with grape-vines, and trees and vines were red with fruit. Over that boundary of nature the mountains appeared more friendly than they otherwise would have done, and the nearest orchard and vines surrounded the home of a friend; and that friend was the author of the now much-loved funeral hymn, Rest, on the hillside, rest. But memories are taking too close a hold upon us. The boy who had just completed his servitude of whacking bulls and shouting "gee!" and "hawf" from the banks of the Missouri river, to the still farther western valley, did not know aught of mountain structure; not his the knowledge that the V-shaped can- yons that fretted the Wasatch range are the result of the action of water, or that the U-shaped canyons had been gouged from the rock by the process of moving ice. But what of that? The mountains and the passage ways through them were marvels to the boy who looked thereon. Fear not, my reader; in spite of that reference to V-shaped and U-shaped canyons, this is not to be a treatise by a tyro in geology, upon the building and denuding of the Wasatch range. It is only a remini- scence of a glorious autumn day; a day made glorious by nature and the society of glorious friends. ***** Truly the November day was a marvel; how ambient was the air, how brightly shone the sun! The physician and surgeon, Dr. Mid- dleton, whose guests we were, was at his best; the brain- wearied edi- tor had relaxed and forgotten for the time being, the world questions of the day; the hospital interne was content, and the trio of charming ladies, whose daily duties consist in ministering to the wants of those who suffer, were in a merry mood. In making a start for the canyon our auto passed over the very spot — once known as Naisbitt's hill — where the writer had first looked on the Wasatch range. No longer were orchards and gardens around, but clusters of stately buildings, Hillcrest and Rowland Hall among them; an irrigation ditch once ran across the spot, but that had gone, and instead of grassy banks, hard cement was there; and in the water's place were tracks of steel. Such was the change of years. And, alas, the poet, too, was gone; he who had written the funeral hymn; yes, gone to his "Rest, on the hillside, rest." But, in the distance, unchanged, stood the noble mountains. Slope and wall and peak lifted above the valley haze, beautiful as ever, dream-like, yet a stern reality, mighty silhouettes against the cloud- less sky.

210 IMPROVEMENT ERA Bell's canyon is a U-shaped canyon; that is, it is U-shaped with a difference. As we all know, the Wasatch range of mountains is pierced with many canyons. In that old photograph the V-shaped gash of Millcreek was very prominent, and so it was as we passed it by. Then there was the composite mouth of the Big, and the vast U of the Little Cottonwood. Last there was the wild, wild gorge, generally known as Bell's canyon. The letter S well describes the steep course of the Bell's from its mouth or entrance to that vast hollow, high up in the side of Lone Peak. Far above the glacier course was formed. We climbed up a zig-zag trail to an eminence, the top of one of the lateral moraines and from there beheld a thrilling spectacle. A capital letter S, then, miles in length, ice-cut through the stubborn granite, that is Bell's canyon. Nowhere along the western front of the Wasatch moun- tains shall we find another place where the tale of the glacial epoch upon the range is better' told. In fact, the mouth of Bell's canyon, with its terminal moraines, main and lateral, its marking of successive bench-lands — ancient beaches — its tens of thousands of water and ice-carved boulders, ranging from those of a few pounds in weight to those of many tons, not only tells the tale of the glacial epoch upon the Wasatch mountains, but also the tale of the vast vanished lakes, "La Hontan," and "Bonneville." But the heights have more ancient tales to tell. "Up there," pro- claimed our host, waving his hand toward the peaks, and becoming eloquent, "we are near to the first chapter of the geologic Genesis." A Legend of the Wasatch, told by the Granite of Bell's Canyon; perhaps our caption should have been somewhat different; not only has Bell's canyon a voice in the Legend of the Wasatch, but those upper peaks, those wastes of gleaming granite, have the older part to tell. ***** My experience with Bell's canyon, besides looking many times through a field glass, at its entire S-shaped length, began not at its entrance, but at its summit. The field glasses revealed some interest- ing details. Upon a rock-ledge on the northeastern side of the gigantic defile, is a grove of aspens, and this grove is the highest assemblage of aspens which the glass made out on the Wasatch range. Moreover, those trees, from their high and exposed position, are the first to catch the autumn color, and their pale and ambered gold is most plainly visible from our city, although the grove is from eighteen to twenty miles in a direct line, distant. Upon the southwestern slope of the Bell's canyon wall the field glass showed another detail. Once a ter- rific wind storm must have exercised its force upon that slope; there are prostrate the trunks of countless pines, and the length of each tree points in the same direction. So they lay, no doubt, on the afternoon when the Pioneers entered the Valley, and so they lie today. With a field glass one may also see our city, the gleaming surface of the ice-polished granite, the course of the monster glacier of the years ago.

The Great Glacial Hollow, at Head of Bell's Canyon But return to our earlier statements: My acquaintance with Bell's canyon was up in the region where the head of its one-time glacier lay. O, what a thrilling place! Otherwhere we have called it, a chaos, an infernal of granite; there is silence and solitude, terribleness and deso- lation! There, ages upon ages ago, began the stream of ice and at the canyon mouth it ended upon the shore of Bonneville. But the Legend of the Wasatch? The Legend! Well, the Legend of the Wasatch is about a lonely island. No, not a Treasure Island, no place of hidden gold, no lair of pirates, save it were the winged pirates of the air or the finner pirates of the primeval seas, the great core of this part of the Wasatch range, we are told by science, the huge purple mass of archaean rock which looks over the canyon heads, was the first to rise above the waters of all this western land. A lonely island once indeed, around which gamboled the monsters of the deep; the haunt of aquatic birds, now the home of the marmot and the eagle. Once the island shores were fringed with seaweed, now the same rocks are the abode of flowers. On the bare summits, the highest of all, that now knows only silence or the thunder of the passing storm, once were vocal with the voice of waves, and for the cerulean of the mountain skies, the sun looked yellow through the mists of the world's morning. Our host, and such a fine host he was! had intended that our visit to the Bell's canyon should be timed with the period of gorgeous foliage, but our trip was delayed, the amber, the crimson, the ruddy browns and the maroons had passed. The foliage had fallen from the sumacs, the maples, the birch and the scrub-oaks, the white erratic branches of the aspens were bare, and the masses of crisp, dead leaves

Summit of Lone Peak rustled beneath our tread. The countless boulders with which the moraines are strewn gleamed wanly gray in the late autumn sunlight; and far up the canyon — terrific gorge, rather — the slender water-falls, voiceless with distance, showed white upon the granite shelves. The bright November day, however, was not without its special beauties. There was one vast, sad harmony of retrospective in the history of the ancient rocks, the records of the centuries of nature's labors, the dead leaves that told of a vanished summer. And, we were about to add, the thoughts in the memories of some of those who looked upon it. But that is too personal, and there were others whose hearts were attuned only to thoughts of the present or of the future. It was a glorious day, even if it were a November day. There was one, at least, who looked upon that mighty pathway to the mountain summits with a strange pleasure, thinking of the years that had passed since he made its ac- quaintance, in the vast hollow at its head, and now looked upon it again, for the last time, no doubt, amid the terminal moraines from the age of ice, and thankful, too, that he had known not only the sorrows, but also the raptures of life. A glorious day! And a glorious approach of night! Homeward we sped; what marvelous colors marked the dying day! As the Wasatch had been a dawn — a dream — so the mountain became in the fading light. Pale, mauve-colored mists hid the mountains' base, their summits were touched with golden-rose. And then, up came the November moon, a dead world, science says, and like a ghost it hung above the glacier gap and looked from among the autumn mist. Too solemn indeed! But there appears to be always the law of compensa- tion. There were the sparkling jests, the ripples of laughter, and in sweet or mellow unison a quartet of voices arose to dispel the sadness. There was a gentle harmony between all hearts as the mountains vanished into darkness, and our visit to the wonderful Bell's canyon was at an end.

TOBACCO, TOMBSTONES AND PROFITS* By Luther Burbank "If," pertinently asks Mr. Burbank, "tobacco is such a fine thin§, why don't it's victims rejoice?" You have seen pictures of military cemeteries near great battle- fields. Upon every headstone is chiseled the inscription: "Killed ii action." If one knew nothing about war, these headstones would be sufficient to impress upon him that war is deadly — that it kills. How much would you know about tobacco if, upon the tomb- stone of everyone killed by it were inscribed, "Killed by tobacco"? You would know a lot more about it than you do now, but you wojild not know all, because tobacco does more than kill. It half -kills. It has its victims in the cemeteries and in the streets. It is bad enough to be dead, but it is a question if it is not sometimes worse to be half-dead — to be nervous, irritable, unable to sleep well, with efficiency cut in two and vitality ready to snap at the first great strain. This seems like exaggeration. It isn't. It is well within the truth. You do not know the facts because you are not permitted to know them. It is profitable slowly to poison you and millions of others, so you are poisoned. You were only a boy when you were urged to smoke cigarets. A little later you saw advertisements in which your attention was called to cigars and smoking tobacco. Now you are pressed to use tobacco in all its forms, except as snuff. You can buy snuff if you want to, but it is not urged. Perhaps there are too many false teeth in America to make sneezing popular. But chewing and smoking are set forth by the tobacco trusts as delightful, harmless pas- times. It is even declared that the use of tobacco is beneficial — that it "soothes" the nerves. Chloroform soothes the nerves, too. A small bottle of it will soothe them forever. Let me tell you how tobacco kills. Smokers do not all drop dead around the cigar lighters in tobacco stores. They go away and, years later, die of something else. From the tobacco trust's point of view, that is one of the finest things about tobacco. Its victims do not die on the premises, even when sold the worst cigars. They go away, and when they die, the doctors certify that they died of something else — pneumonia, heart disease, typhoid fever, or what not. In other words, tobacco kills indirectly and escapes the blame. What killed General Grant? Why, of course you know — cancer. ♦From the Dearborn Independent, Michigan.

214 IMPROVEMENT ERA But what caused the cancer in his throat? Do you know? Smoking caused it. General Lee could not get Grant, but tobacco got him. What killed President McKinley? An assassin's bullet, you say. Partly right and partly wrong. McKinley was shot, but his wound need not have proved fatal. Thousands of men, hurt worse, have sur- vived. But they had good hearts. When a great strain comes, strong hearts are necessary to bring the sufferers through alive. McKinley, when he was born, had a strong heart, but the tobacco habit got him and left his heart muscles soft and flabby. When McKinley had need of a strong heart he went down because he had nothing to keep him up. He had smoked up his most vital strength. Woodrow Wilson when old was seized with an ailment that brought him almost to the point of death. For hours he was uncon- scious and for weeks his physicians could not say whether he would live or die. He had need of a good heart. In his hour of need he had a good heart. If Mr. Wilson had been a smoker, Mr. Marshall might have been President. In the African jungle, Theodore Roosevelt was stricken with such a fever that he begged his son and other companions to save themselves by leaving him to die. He, too, had need of the strong heart — and he had one. Mr. Roosevelt never used tobacco. His African illness was so serious that he returned to America emaciated and shaken, but he at least had the heart-power to enable him to get back. But the case for or against tobacco cannot be conclusively proved by what happened to this or that man. The point I am trying to make is that when the pinch comes everyone has need of all the heart- power he can muster — and tobacco weakens heart-power. There is not doubt about that. When one's heart is faltering, no doctor ever prescribes nicotine. Nicotine is a slow poison that strikes at the heart first. Nicotine, after you have used it a while, puts you in a condition to be "bumped off" by the first thing that hits you. If you saw some men undermine a building until it was ready to topple into the street, and then saw a woman hit the building with a baby carriage and make it topple\ you would not say the woman wrecked the building would you? Yet when a smoker dies of pneumonia the doctor's death certificate gives pneumonia and not tobacco as the cause of death. And the tombstone man with his chisel says nothing at all. What a shock people would get if they went through cemeteries and saw tombstones declaring the fact that this man died of typhoid made fatal by tobacco-weakened heart, and that man succumbed to nervous prostration because tobacco had shot his nerves to pieces, and another one gave up the ghost because tobacco had ruined his stomach. But the truth will never be known about tobacco so long as the great tobacco companies are able to spend millions of dollars to build up and maintain businesses with which to poison the people for a profit.

TOBACCO. TOMBSTONES AND PROFITS 215 Did you ever think what would become of the tobacco habit if there were no profit in selling tobacco? How long would it last and how rapidly would it spread? Was anyone ever born with a taste for tobacco? On the contrary, everyone is born with a taste against it — tobacco produces sickness the first few times it is used. Men are able to use tobacco only because of the remarkable power of the human body to adjust iself to an unfavorable environment. The human body pre- fers the good and dislikes the bad, but if it is compelled to endure the bad will make the best of it and stick to life as long as possible. If there were no money in poisoning people with tobacco, the tobacco habit would die out with the last of its present victims. No boy could begin smoking because there would be no place where he he could buy tobacco. If there were no place in which to buy food the boy would not go without food. That shows the difference between useful necessities and poisonous things that enslave only to destroy. We need food; we do not need tobacco. We use tobacco only because it is foisted upon each generation as opium was foisted upon the Chin- ese, and as cigarets are being foisted upon us now. As the tobacco interests become better organized it is increasingly difficult for each generation to escape. Even thirty years ago, a cigar store was an ugly place, littered with cuspidors, dirty and unattractive. Better brains in the tobacco business have changed this. The cigar store is attractive now, even from afar. The windows are tastefully decorated with red, a primary color that appeals to the lowest order of intelligence. Inside, everything is as clean and bright as if the place were a jewelry store. Each possible appeal is made to the eye. And, in addition, there are certificates with which, if one will smoke his head off, he may get a beautiful glass fruit dish for his grandmother or a collar button for himself. Billboard advertising, newspaper advertising, magazine advertis- ing, search every nook and cranny of the country for victims. In this way, millions upon millions of dollars are spent by the tobacco inter- ests every year. It seems almost as if there is no escape for each new generation as it comes along. No matter where a boy may be, tobacco advertising reaches him, pleads with him and urges him to be a fool — to injure his health, decrease his happiness and shorten his life that tobacco interests may gather more millions. If the money that American people are wasting for tobacco were invested in homes, every man and woman could have a home, free of debt, before reaching the age of fifty. If it were invested in farms, everyone could have a farm. If it were invested in reclaiming deserts that, with water, would be orange groves, the present century would see the end of most of the deserts. If it were invested in stock in water-power companies honestly and wisely managed, the harnessing of power now going to waste would make heat, light and power abundant and cheap.

216 IMPROVEMENT ERA If it were invested in traveling, the saving would be sufficient to enable everyone to see all America several times and take at least one trip around the world. Figure it out for yourself. The ordinary smoker who uses cigars will burn up about a dollar a day, which is about $1,000 every three years. If smoking, after thirty years, kills him, he will have wasted $10,000. That is more than enough to buy a decent home, a good farm, or to see America several times and take a whirl around the world. And, at that, the greatest loss is in health and life. The basis of all happiness is health. A sick millionaire is much worse off than a well garbage man. Sickness not only cuts off happiness, but brings discomfort and pain. Always remember that the tendency of tobacco is to destroy. Don't be fooled by newspaper stories inspired by the tobacco in- terests about gentlemen 104 years old who attribute their multitude of years to the use of tobacco. When whiskey-selling was a legal method of getting a living you used to read the same kind of stories about centenarians who had drunk whiskey since they were nine years old. There is no doubt that some men have lived to be very old, not- withstanding the use of tobacco and whiskey. But they are entirely mistaken in believing that it was the tobacco or the whisky that helped them to live long. Here is one proof: Look for all those who were boyhood chums of these aged survivors of to- bacco and whiskey and who, like them, smoked and drank. Where are they? In graveyards. Tobacco and whiskey helped to put the finish- ing touches on them. The one in ten millions or more who survives and reaches a great age, notwithstanding the use of tobacco and whisky, is the odd one who, because of some peculiarity in his constitution, was able to gen- erate an antitoxin that offset the poison of nicotine or alcohol. Each of us has the ability, to a greater or less degree, to develop antitoxins to meet our needs. Smallpox kills the Indian and treats the white man comparatively gently, because it is a new disease to the Indians, to meet which they have not yet had time to generate proper antitoxins. The white man, on the other hand, has had time to develop antitoxins. Smallpox is no new disease to him. He has been familiar with it for centuries and, in the beginning, it hit him as hard as it now does the Indian. Make no mistake. Tobacco is poison that would not be urged upon you if there were not a profit for others in making you a victim. Within my own circle of friends and acquaintances I have known many or, at least several, men whom it has killed^, / never met a tobacco-user who did not regret that he had formed the habit, but I never met a non-smoker who was sorry he did not smoke.

TOBACCO, TOMBSTONES AND PROFITS 217 Isn't that significant? If tobacco is such a fine thing, why don't its victims rejoice? Why do not men like Woodrow Wilson hasten to acquire the tobacco habit? Think this over. Youth is the dangerous age, so far as tobacco is concerned. If one can reach the age of twenty-five without smoking, the tobacco trust will have difficulty in getting him. We are in the process of driving alcohol beverages from the coun- try. The death rate all over the country has taken a sharp drop to the lowest point ever reached. In my opinion the day is not far distant when we shall outlaw tobacco as we have alcohol. I believe tobacco shortens more lives and kills more people than alcohol ever did, not because tobacco is more deadly; but because it is more widely used than whiskey ever was. We shall have better health, more happiness, longer life and more comforts when we cease wasting our money for tobacco and whiskey. There are now plenty of persons who will hoot at this statement, but in a few decades there will be a hundred millions or so who will hoot at the present hooters. Three Views of Life I stood amid eternity And viewed the country round about. I saw a land of purity, It was my former home no doubt. 'Twas there I held my first estate; 'Twas there I cried aloud for joy; 'Twas there the fallen son's mistake Would all our agency destroy. Away beneath I saw the earth In this an unperfected plane; I realized my earthly birth And also that from whence I came. 'Tis here I came by my applaud And now in mortal flesh I dwell; 'Tis here that I should worship God And not be trodden down to Hell. Another land ('twas pure and bright) Upon the right mine eyes beheld; A perfect union moved with might For Holy Faith with all did dwell. In this far iand I'd love to live Where souls of men will all unite. 'Tis there each one must freely give, Then all will reap Celestial light. Mink Creek, Idaho CHRISTEN HANSEN