I seem to be at a very loose end – the post which follows, would for sure register high on any “mundane pointless” scale. Anyway: it’s prompted by the discussion which there has been on TSD in the past, involving the fallacy believed by many people – it would seem, particularly in the US – to the effect that basically all rivers of any significance whatever, worldwide, flow from north to south: the sole exception being the south-to-north Nile. (One thread covering this particular nonsense, is “Are people really this ignorant of science?”, commencing 07-04-2006, on MPSIMS.)
All this was brought to mind for me yesterday by a visit to a tourist attraction in England’s picturesque Cotswold Hills, not quite 100 miles west-north-west of London. Mentioned there, was a local feature, hitherto completely unknown to me: the little River Isbourne, which according to the tourist “blurb” is “said to be one of only two rivers in England which flow due north from their source”. (The other such was not named, and Google has given me no help as to its identity.) Looking at the maps: per one possible version, the Isbourne does indeed run from its source in the Cotswolds, pretty-much due northward for some thirteen miles, to join Shakespeare’s Avon at the town of Evesham. (An alternative version has the first 2 / 3 miles not as the Isbourne, but its tributary the Beesmoor Brook; the Isbourne proper, rising markedly further west.)
In the light of this stuff, am finding self wondering: is this kind of thing known to any participants in their local areas – a river’s running consistently throughout its length, in any particular compass direction, being focused on as an interesting curiosity? Or is the River Isbourne matter purely a bit of local battiness in this corner of England, connected with somewhat desperate barrel-scraping to find trivia-type stuff of interest for the trippers; and without equivalents elsewhere?
Curious? No. The Columbia flows from east to west through Oregon (before that, it’s primarily a N-S river) and most of the larger rivers feeding it flow south to north, the notable exception being the Snake River, which enters from northeast to southwest.
I can think of several major rivers that don’t follow the N-S ‘rule’, including the Mackenzie River in Canada, and large parts of the Yukon River.
Nitpick: The Columbia doesn’t flow “through” Oregon. Part of it flows along the Oregon-Washington border. And the rivers entering the Columbia on the Oregon side are generally north flowing. Willamette, Sandy, Hood, Deschutes, John Day, etc.
Which is how you can find rivers in England that flow north: Pick a river that has a good E-W stretch, look for a list of tributaries on the south side. E.g., River Thames has the Mole and Darent that flow north into it and no doubt others.
I very much doubt that this at all a widespread belief, since a quick glance at any world map - heck, even just a map of North America - showing major rivers will quickly show anyone that it is absolutely baseless. The odd person here and there may have formed this belief due to having considered only a few examples that happen to fit the patten, and maybe there are few people (young children, most likely, who think that rivers will flow south because south is ‘down’, on a standard map or globe, but I see no likelihood (or evidence) that “many people” believe it.
If this thread contains the basis for your weird claim, how about providing an actual link to it? I have no idea how to find it just from the date and forum. You don’t even give the thread title to search for!
It certainly sounds like barrel-scraping trivia to me.
I was ‘taught’ the North-South except for the Nile in the 5th grade. It wasn’t hard to find the other exceptions. Apparently people believed this at one time.
I thought there might be a banal truth hidden in the factoid given to the OP - that maybe the Isbourne doesnt ever meander back in any kind of southerly direction, but this is not the case.
So it’s trivial to find other examples. Trace any bit of north coast until you find a river mouth, then follow it back. Not all of them flow significantly and consistently north, but plenty do.
njtt: I apologise, but my computer skills are poor, and I don’t know what are the mechanics of doing a link to a previous thread; all I know how to do, is “point the way” as I tried to do. Entering “Kanawha” in the board’s “Search” facility, will bring up the mentioned thread, “Are people really this ignorant of science?” – which is the thread title – I don’t see what makes you think that I failed to give it.
I would be grateful for (polite) instruction on how to link to a particular thread.
I’m sure I have seen confirmation of my “weird claim” that quite a lot of not-very-well-informed people think that nearly all significant rivers run north-to-south, in other past TSD threads; but the 2006 thread which I tried to cite, was the only one that I could fetch up.
I’m old enough and had enough very old teachers to hear a bunch of out-of-date theories. I don’t think the river thing is a theory, I don’t know what it is except something commonly said a long time ago.
I was also told that Brontosauri were aquatic animals because they were too heavy to support their bodies with their legs on land, and they had long necks to be able to breathe in deep water. Interestingly I saw a news item the other day that used the same justification for the Spinosaurus to be an aquatic animal, with some criticism of that theory.
I did not realize that that was meant to be the thread title, but even so …
To link to a thread, open it in its own tab, and click in the location bar of your browser. That should highlight the URL (page address) of the thread. Press Cntrl+C to copy that URL into the clipboard. Go to where you are composing your message and press Cntrl+V to copy the URL into the message. Takes about 2 seconds. (These instructions are for a Windows computer. You may have to do slightly different things on an Apple or Android device.)
I was taught that about the Fox River (from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay in Wisconsin) - something about navigable rivers (but the Fox is only so due to locks).
The local newspaper answer guy (kind of a local mini-Cecil) shot that down
Take a look at a map of the three (four?) largest river systems in China - the Xi, the Yangtze, the Yellow, (plus the Songhua). None of them have a primarily north-south path, and I would consider them to be “rivers of significance”. Hell, the Yangtze is the 3rd longest river in the world, it has the 4th highest discharge, and the 11th largest drainage area. Plus, goddamn, look at all the people living within its watershed.