When James from Waco, Texas, was lost while hiking, he wondered Where in the blazes am I?, then wondered about the origin of that expression. It doesn’t derive from blaze meaning “to cut into a tree to mark a trail.” That term belongs to a family of...
witness mark
n.— «Correct form of blaze on trees as witness marks.» —by Richard Henry Stretch Prospecting Locating and Valuing Mines , 1900. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
