The Tabernacle, which is in the same square as the Temple, and just west of it, is aptly described by Mr. P. Donan as one of the architectural curios of the world.  It looks like a vast terrapin back, or half of a prodigious egg-shell cut in two lengthwise, and is built wholly of iron, glass and stone.  It is 250 feet long, 150 feet wide, and 100 feet high in the center of the roof, which is a single mighty arch, unsupported by pillar or post, and is said to have but one counterpart on the globe.  The walls are 12 feet thick, and there are 20 huge double doors for entrance and exit.  The Tabernacle seats 13,462 people, and its acoustic properties are so marvelously perfect that a whisper or the dropping of a pin can be heard all over it.  The organ is one of the largest and grandest toned in existence, and was built of native woods, by Mormon workmen and artists, at a cost of $100,000.  It is 58 feet high, has 57 stops, and contains 2,648 pipes, some of them nearly as large as the chimneys of a Mississippi River steamer.

The choir consists of from 200 to 500 trained voices, and the music is glorious beyond description.  Much of it is in minor keys, and a strain of plaintiveness mingles with all its majesty and power.  All the seats are free, and tourists from all parts of the world are to be found among the vast multitudes that assemble at every service.  Think of seeing the Holy Communion broken bread, and water from the Jordan River, instead of wine, administered to from 6,000 to 8,000 communicants at one time!  One can just fancy the old-time Mormon elders marching in, each followed by his five or twenty-five wives and his fifty or a hundred children.

Close by is Assembly Hall, also of white granite, and of Gothic architecture.  It has seats for 2,500 people, and is most remarkable for the costly fresco work on the ceiling, which illustrates scenes from Mormon history, including the alleged discovery of the golden plates and their delivery to Prophet Smith by the Angel Moroni.

All around this remarkable city are sights of surpassing beauty.  Great Salt Lake itself ought to be regarded as one of the wonders of the world.  Although an inland sea, with an immense area intervening between it and the nearest ocean, its waters are much more brackish and salty than those of either the Atlantic or the Pacific, and its specific gravity is far greater.  Experts tell us that the percentage of salt and soda is six times as great as in the waters of the Atlantic, and one great advantage of living in its vicinity is the abundance of good, pure salt, which is produced by natural evaporation on its banks.  It would be interesting, if it were possible, to explain why it is that the water is so salty.  Various reasons have been advanced from time to time for this phenomenon, but none of them are sufficiently practical or tangible to be of great interest to the unscientific reader.