Today the wanton killing of a gull in Utah is an offense in law; but stronger than legal proscription, more powerful than fear of judicial penalties, is the popular sentiment in favor of these white-winged deliverers.  Every year come these graceful creatures to spend the springtime in the fields and upon the lakes of Utah; and right well do they feel their welcome, for they are habitually so tame and fearless that they may almost be touched by the hand before they take flight.

By the autumn of 1848, five thousand people had already reached the valley, and the food problem was a most difficult one.  The winter was severe; and famine, stark and inexorable, threw its dread shadow over the people.  There seemed to be an entry in the book of fate that every possible test of human endurance and integrity should be applied to this pilgrim band.  Without distinction as to former station, they went out and dug the roots of weeds, gathered the tenderest of the coarse grass, thistles, and wild berries, and thus did they subsist; upon such did they feast with thanksgiving, until a less scanty harvest relieved their wants.

It was at this time that the gold fever was at its height, a consequence of the discovery of the precious metal in California, in which discovery, indeed, certain members of the disbanded “Mormon” Battalion, working their way eastward, were most prominent.  Some of the “Mormon” settlers, becoming infected with the malady, hastened westward, but the counsel of the Church authorities prevailed to keep all but a few at home.  These people had not left the country of their birth or adoption to seek gold; nor bright jewels of the mine; nor the wealth of seas; nor the spoils of war; they sought and believed they had found, a faith’s pure shrine.  But the gold-seekers hastening westward, and the successful miners returning eastward, halted at the “Mormon” settlements and there replenished their supplies, leaving their gold to enrich the people of the desert.

But of what use is gold in the wilderness!  In the old legend a famishing Arab, finding a well filled bag upon the sand was thrilled with joy at the thought of dates—­his bread; and then was cast into the depths of despair when he realized that he had found nothing but a bag of costly pearls.  The settlers by the lake needed horses and wagons, tools, implements of husbandry and building; and gold was valuable only as it represented a means of obtaining these.  Gold became so plentiful and was withal so worthless in the desert colony that men refused to take it for their labor.  The yellow metal was collected in buckets and exported to the States in exchange for the goods so much desired.  Merchandise brought in by caravans of “prairie schooners,” was sold as fast as it could be put out; and strict rules were enforced allowing but a proportionate amount to each purchaser.

Within a few months after the first settlement of Utah, public schools were established; and one of the early acts of the provisional government was to grant a charter to the Deseret University, now known as the University of Utah.