ward into it, to put distance between themselves and their persecutors, without even knowing at that time the goal of their long wanderings, nor the spot where they should once more build for themselves permanent dwellings. They asked me a thousand questions about the regions I had explored and the spot which I have just described to you pleased them greatly from the account I gave them of it. Was that what determined them? I would not dare to assert it. They are there. In the last three years Utah has changed its aspect, and from a desert has become a flourishing territory which will soon become one of the States of the
Union. It is bounded by California, Oregon, New Mexico and the region called of old the Great Western Territory. In 1847, in the month of April, the first Mormon pioneers left the place of their winter quarters at Council Bluffs; on the 22d of July of the same year they entered this valley and halted at the place which forms to-day the centre of the city. In the afternoon of the same day they were at work with three plows and a harrow, and had begun the first ditch for the irrigation of the field. On the 24th they planted five acres in potatoes. On the 28th they laid out the plan of the future city. It is divided into ten-acre blocks with eight lots to each block and a vast garden and yard to each lot. The streets are eight rods in width and the sidewalks on each side twenty feet. There are to be shade-trees along the sidewalks. Each block is surrounded with a stream of limpid water, coming down in abundance from the mountains. Every house stands twenty feet from the street line, and no two houses are built opposite each other, so that a man in his own front door cannot look into that of his neighbor, but has a fine view of his garden. There are four great public places, which will be adorned with beautiful fountains and trees brought from the four quarters of the globe. The
square of the temple will have a fine garden. Already their missionaries have made arrangements in the Eastern States, in England, France, Italy, Denmark, Germany and the