Great Salt Lake Connects to the Pacific Ocean in 1800?
According to an intriguing 1826 map atlas, an unnamed river flowed from Great Salt Lake (also unnamed at the time) all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The atlas, titled Morse’s New Universal Atlas of the World on an Improved Plan of Alphabetical Indexes, Designed for Academies and Higher Schools, was recently donated to the Utah Geological Survey
Thought to be the only communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the map shows the river emptying into San Francisco Bay. These old maps are not only fascinating, but offer insight into the events taking place in the early 1800s – providing an almost 200-year-old visual history of the world.
