Salt Desert Trails: A History of the Hastings Cutoff and other early trails which crossed the Great Salt Desert seeking a shorter road to California

Salt Lake City: Western Printing Company, 1930. First edition. 178,pp. Octavo [23.5 cm] Original pebbled brown boards with a green, gilt and blind stamped title, wagon and pioneer design on the front cover. Good/Near fine. Remnants of the scarce dust jacket remain. Attractive period book plate on front pastedown. Otherwise in nice, clean condition. A great work on the different explorers and groups that crossed the Salt Flats,from the earliest nineteenth century. Includes accounts on Jedediah Smith, Bartleson, Fremont, Clyman, the ill-fated Donner Party, Stansbury and early twentieth century motor travel.

"The Great Salt Lake in its present state extends seventy-five miles north and south, with an approximate width an approximate width of fifty miles. To the west lies a great desolate expand called the Salt Desert, with a length of one hundred miles and a width of seventy-five. This great level salt plain was in geologically recent times a part of the Great Salt Lake, and even now lies only a few feet above high water mark. The Salt Desert is the floor of what was once the larger half of the Salt Lake, into which no stream flows. Evaporation has removed the surface water, leaving only a great level expanse of mud and salt. No vegetation grows upon its surface, no fresh water enters it, and as far as the eye can see there is nothing but the apparently illimitable expanse of salt-plain." - Charles Kelly. Flake/Draper 4565, Howes K59.