Beans

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

Re: the Mailbag article
Why is Boston called “Beantown”?.

So, why Boston then, and not New York, or Baltimore?

2

It looks like an error exists in this answer. The Coriolis Effect causes counter-clockwise rotations in the northern hemisphere, not clockwise as the answer states. And while the major ocean current, the Gulf Stream, is following a clockwise pattern, I seem to recall having read somewhere that there is another major current below the Gulf Stream that flows in the opposite direction.

3

Welcome to the Straight Dope. The questions get harder.

The Mailbag seems correct.
http://oceanographer.navy.mil/atlantic.html

The direction of rotation depends upon your perspective. Tornados and hurricanes rotate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, but they are formed in a low pressure area and the incoming air (like water going down a drain in a basin) is deflected to its right (clockwise rotation). This produces a vortex at the center with counterclockwise rotation. (In a small basin, the effect is swamped by other factors, but that is a good way to visualize what happens.)

Here is a nice graphic, if you can wait for it to load:
http://www.odysseyexpeditions.org/oceanography.htm

Apparently, anticyclones can form from highs, in the northern hemisphere:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/03362.html

4

Thanks for the links to those answers. I would have been lost without them. Cec is so wise

5

It’s my understanding that the same kind of beans that in Boston are made into baked beans, were in Great Britain once contemptuously referred to as “horse beans”, because they used to be fed to horses. I believe I read somewhere that a few 19th century British travelers expressed their surprise to their diaries at “horse beans” appearing in their American hotel’s dining room.