Continental Divide

[Mullins, Bill]

This doesn't beat your govt documents, but is early . . .

_Rocky Mountain News_, (Denver, CO), Sept 15 1869, p.2
"First, it is eveident that this pest spreads over a large extent of
territory, being found in an east and west direction from the summit of the
continental divide to the Missouri river, and north and sout from central
New Mexico to the Black Hills."

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jim wolf [mailto:cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM]
> Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 10:30 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Continental Divide
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       jim wolf <cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Continental Divide
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> I am interested in discovering very early uses of the term
> "Continental Divide."
>
> "Divide" as a designation for the separation of watersheds
> goes back at least to the first part of the nineteenth
> century. There were also many other terms in use for the
> Continental Divide, such as "backbone of the continent" or
> "dividing ridge." And there was even a reference to "where
> the waters divide" in an overland journal of the 1840s.
>
> So far, the earliest mention of the precise term "Continental Divide"
> is in Government documents of 1866 and 1867.  And it doesn't
> show up on maps until at least 1873.
>
> Can anyone locate any "Continental Divide" reference, on
> documents or maps, earlier than these?
>
> Jim Wolf
>
> (James R. Wolf, cdtsociety at yahoo.com)
>
>
>
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