![]() A hut mounted on pilings could have been the habitation of “the missing link.” A great pleasure arose from seeing all those incoherent structures. Pumps coated with black stickiness rusted in the corrosive salt air. For forty or more years people have tried to get oil out of this natural tar pool. A series of seeps of heavy black oil more like asphalt occur just south of Rozel Point. Two dilapidated shacks looked over a tired group of oil rigs. The products of a Devonian industry, the remains of a Silurian technology, all the machines of the Upper Carboniferous Period were lost in those expansive deposits of sand and mud. The mere sight of the trapped fragments of junk and waste transported one into a world of modern prehistory. An expanse of salt flats bordered the lake, and caught in its sediments were countless bits of wreckage. Slowly, we drew near to the lake, which resembled an impassive faint violet sheet held captive in a stoney matrix, upon which the sun poured down its crushing light. Sandy slopes turned into viscous masses of perception. We followed roads that glided away into dead ends. Hills took on the appearance of melting solids, and glowed under amber light. The roads on the map became a net of dashes, while in the far distance the Salt Lake existed as an interrupted silver band. As we traveled, the valley spread into an uncanny immensity unlike the other landscapes we had seen. Just beyond the Golden Spike Monument, which commemorates the meeting of the rails of the first transcontinental railroad, we went down a dirt road in a wide valley. ![]() We then decided to leave and go to Rozel Point.ĭriving west on Highway 83 late in the afternoon, we passed through Corinne, then went on to Promontory. He showed us photographs he had taken of “icebergs,” 3Īnd of Kit Carson’s cross carved on a rock on Fremont Island. After fixing a gashed gas tank, we returned to Charles Stoddard’s house north of Syracuse on the edge of some salt marshes. The abandoned man-made harbors of Little Valley gave me my first view of the wine-red water, but there were too many “Keep Out” signs around to make that a practical site for anything, and we were told to “stay away” by two angry ranchers. He was kind enough to take us to Little Valley on the east side of the Lucin Cutoff to look for his barge-it had sunk. Yet, while he was living on the island with his family he made many valuable observations of the lake. His attempt to develop Carrington Island in 1932 ended in failure because he could not find fresh water. Stoddard, a well-driller, was one of the last homesteaders in Utah. We visited Charles Stoddard, who supposedly had the only barge on the north side of the cutoff. I thought of making an island with the help of boats and barges, but in the end I would let the site determine what I would build. At that point I was still not sure what shape my work of art would take. Due to the high salt content of the water it was impractical for ordinary boats to use the lake, and no large boats at all could go beyond the Lucin Cutoff on which the transcontinental railroad crossed the lake. His sons showed us the only boat that sailed the lake. Next we went to see John Silver on Silver Sands Beach near Magna. Although that site was interesting, the water lacked the red coloration I was looking for, so we continued our search. ![]() ![]() He was instrumental in building a causeway that connected Syracuse with Antelope Island in the southern part of the Great Salt Lake. First we visited Bill Holt who lived in Syracuse. Tuttle told my wife, Nancy Holt, and myself of some people who knew the lake. That was enough of a reason to go out there and have a look. The beach is grey and the lake pink, topped with the icing of iceberg-like masses of salts.” 2īecause of the remoteness of Bolivia and because Mono Lake lacked a reddish color, I decided to investigate the Great Salt Lake in Utah.įrom New York City I called the Utah Park Development and spoke to Ted Tuttle, who told me that water in the Great Salt Lake north of Lucin Cutoff, which cuts the lake in two, was the color of tomato soup. In The Useless Land, John Aarons and Claudio Vita-Finzi describe Laguna Colorada: “The basalt (at the shores) is black, the volcanos purple, and their exposed interiors yellow and red. The pink flamingos that live around the salars match the color of the water. Later I read a book called Vanishing Trails of Atacama by William Rudolph which described salt lakes (salars) in Bolivia in all stages of desiccation and filled with micro bacteria that give the water surface a red color. My concern with salt lakes began with my work in 1968 on the Mono Lake Site-Nonsite in California. Red is the most joyful and dreadful thing in the physical universe, it is the fiercest note, it is the highest light, it is the place where the walls of this world of ours wear the thinnest and something beyond burns through.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |