The deficiency of iron, coal, and wood is the chief obstacle to the material development of Utah.  No iron-mines have been discovered, except in the extreme southern portion of the Territory; and the quality of the ore is so inferior, that it is available only for the manufacture of the commonest household utensils, such as andirons.  The principal coal-beds hitherto found are in the immediate vicinity of Green River.  There are several sawmills, all run by water-power, scattered among the more densely-wooded canons; but they supply hardly lumber enough to meet the demand,—­even the sugar-boxes and boot-cases which are thrown aside at the merchants’ stores being eagerly sought after and appropriated.  The most ordinary articles of wooden furniture command extravagant prices.

Nowhere is the absence of trees, the utter desolation of the scenery, more impressive than in a view from the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake.  The broad plain which intervenes between its margin and the foot of the Wahsatch Range is almost entirely lost sight of; the mountain-slopes, their summits flecked with snow, seem to descend into water on every side except the northern, on which the blue line of the horizon is interrupted only by Antelope Island.  The prospect in that direction is apparently as illimitable as from the shore of an ocean.  The sky is almost invariably clear, and the water intensely blue, except where it dashes over fragments of rock that have fallen from some adjacent cliff, or where a wave, more aspiring than its fellows, overreaches itself and breaks into a thin line of foam.  Through a gap in the ranges on the west, the line of the Great Desert is dimly visible.  The beach of the lake is marked by a broad belt of fine sand, the grains of which are all globular.  Along its upper margin is a rank growth of reeds and salt grass.  Swarms of tiny flies cover the surface of every half-evaporated pool, and a few white sea-gulls are drifting on the swells.  Nowhere is there a sign of refreshing verdure except on the distant mountainsides, where patches of green grass glow in the sunlight among the vast fields of sage.

The buildings throughout the entire Territory are, almost without exception, of adobe.  The brick is of a uniform drab color, more pleasing to the eye than the reddish hue of the adobes of New Mexico or the buff tinge of many of those in California.  In size it is about double that commonly used in the States.  The clay, also, is of very superior quality.  The principal stone building in the Territory is the Capitol, at Fillmore, one hundred and fifty miles south of Salt Lake City.  The design of the architect is for a very magnificent edifice in the shape of a Greek cross, with a rotunda sixty feet in diameter.  Only one wing has been completed, but this is spacious enough to furnish all needful accommodation.  The material is rough-hammered sandstone, of an intense red.