BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)

Subject: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 12:38 AM

This came to me via email. I looked for an url and didn't find one, so here it is in its entirety. (Joe, I promise I'll never post anything this long again!) My question: Are all of these "facts" true? For instance, the lakes in Ohio? As many lakes as there in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota it seems like Ohio shouldn't be that different.
Alaska
More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in Alaska.
Amazon
The Amazon rain forest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen supply. The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon River is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three times the flow of all rivers in the United States .
Antarctica
Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica . This ice also represents seventy percent of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it, i.e.), Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi Desert.
Brazil
Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.
Canada
Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. Canada is an Indian word meaning " Big Village ."
Chicago
Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world.
Detroit
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M-1, so named because it was the first paved road anywhere.
Damascus, Syria
Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.
Istanbul , Turkey
The only city in the world located on two continents.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles's full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angelesde Porciuncula -- and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L. A.
New York City
The term "The Big Apple" was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930's who used the slang expression "apple" for any town or city. Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time - The Big Apple. There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin , Ireland; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; and more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel .
Ohio
There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio, every one is manmade.
Pitcairn Island
The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia, at just 1.75 sq. miles/4,53 sq. km.
Rome
The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. There is a city called Rome on every continent.
Siberia
Siberia contains more than 25% of the world's forests.
S.M.O.M .
The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (S.M.O.M.). It is located in the city of Rome, Italy, has an area of two tennis courts, and as of 2001 has a population of 80, 20 fewer people than the Vatican. It is a sovereign entity under international law, just as the Vatican is.
Sahara Desert
In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named Tidikelt, which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically though, the driest place on Earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island   There has been no rainfall there for two million years.
Spain
Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'
St. Paul, Minnesota
St. Paul, Minnesota , was originally called Pig's Eye after a man named Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant who set up the first business there.
Roads
Chances that a road is unpaved in the USA : 1%, in Canada : 75%
Texas
The deepest hole ever made in the world is in Texas. It is as deep as 20 Empire State buildings but only 3 inches wide.
United States
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
Waterfalls
The water of Angel Falls (the World's highest) in Venezuela drops 3,212 feet (979 meters). They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 01:26 AM

Some responses to an interesting post.
"Antarctica
Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country."
Several countries have laid claim to parts of Antarctica but the USA didn't get in before some of them and has always disputed assertions that its citizens were not the first to see the continent. Under the Antarctic Treaty of 1960 (or thereabouts) all territorial claims to Antarctica are "frozen". While the measured relative humidity there may hover about the 50% the absolute humidity is about three fifths of five eighths of precious little and probably as given. There are places where there is a nett deposition of precipitation (often exceeding 2"; check the fate of the US base "Wilkes", taken over by the Australians after the 1958-58 IGY) and other places where most of what is blown around is blown out to sea so your 2" may be correct as an average for those places where it is measured.

"Rome
The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. There is a city called Rome on every continent. "
The last time I looked there wasn't a Rome in Antarctica and, unless you count "Roma" there wasn't one in Oz either.

"Detroit
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M-1, so named because it was the first paved road anywhere. "
I suspect "anywhere" here means "anywhere in the USA". Those familiar with that bloke Macadam in Britain might be able to shed more light on the assertion.

Interesting, though.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 02:19 AM

lol, Rowan.

I was wondering about that. Nothin' like ethnocentricity. Keep it up!

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Leadfingers
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 06:17 AM

Just to be mildly parochial , Birmingham , West Midlands , U K , has more miles of canas than Venice , Italy .

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 06:51 AM

I remember being taught that about the Amazon in the 1950s.


I've heard that about Brazil before.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:11 AM

I have to question that one about the Amazon river. Considering that fresh water is heavier than salt water, the river water would tend to sink, making it difficult to reach.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:48 AM

kendall, google "seawater density".

Brazil got its name from a mythical Atlantic island "Hy-Brasil". Samuel Eliot Morison's "The European Discovery of America" gives the details.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 08:04 AM

re fresh water - I can remember reading a story about a crazed ship-wreck survivor who scooped water up before his mates could stop him & found it was fresh water. I think he might have died - whether from drinking fresh water after so long a period without adequate water, or just because he was weakened.

Verifying the story is the problem - my mind is full of little snippets of half-remembered knowledge & trivia!

Or maybe it was in a novel.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: GUEST,Michael
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 08:29 AM

Hey Kendall, Fresh Water has a Specific Gravity of 1.000 g/cc at sea level at 25 degrees Centigrade. The Specific Gravity of Sea Water at Sea Level at 25 degrees Centigrade is 1.025 g/cc. The SG of Sea Water continues to increase to a maximum of 1.028 g/cc at 1,000 Meters of sea depth. It stays at that measured density up to a measured 4,500 Meters. Therefore, your assertio that salt water is lighter than fresh water and one can retrieve salt free water by going below the salt water, uh, "Holds no water" shall we say?

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 09:58 AM

Heck, everybody knows fresh water is lighter than salt water. Why do ya think icebergs float in the ocean?

(Insert symbol combination meaning "just kidding" here: ________. )

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: gnu
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 10:10 AM

Ice bergs float in fresh water too. Look in your glass.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: MMario
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 10:23 AM

Amazon
The Amazon rain forest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen supply. The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean. The volume of water in the Amazon River is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three times the flow of all rivers in the United States .

? Since Algae in the oceans produce more then 80% of the oxygen supply how can the Amazon produce over 20%?
Over 20% of the land-based O2 I'd go for.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: GUEST, Ebbie
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:39 PM

Doesn't sound to me that all of Ohio's lakes are manmade. According to this: "Ohio boasts more than 60,000 lakes, ponds, and reservoirs. Almost all of these are manmade. The manmade lakes cover about 200,000 acres of water. About 6,700 acres of water make up natural bodies of water."

http://www.gcpl.lib.oh.us/nautical_facts.asp#Ohio

People who are mendacious for the sake of a pithy comment, whether true or not, irritate me.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:46 PM

Look up "Plimsoll marks"

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 07:53 PM

I don't say its not true, I say I don't believe it.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 08:05 PM

I saw a program awhile back that said that the Atacama desert in Chile was about the driest 'regular' spot...that is, where people 'try' to hang out..(place with the least rainfall)...I suppose it varies from decade to decade.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 09:51 PM

Facts about antipodes:

4%http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Malden&state=MA&site=BOX
7-Day Forecast for Latitude 42.45N and Longitude -71.08W of the earth's surface is land opposite land. 46% is ocean opposite ocean. 50% is land opposite ocean or vice versa.

At any time, there is at least one pair of antipodal points that have the same temperature and atmospheric pressure. (Not actually a geographical, but a mathematical fact.)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Amos
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 10:51 PM

Kendall:

Weight and density are different but related factors. Vessels ride higher on salt water than on fresh. That's because they displace equal mass in less volume, salt water being denser, and hence weighing jest a smidgin more. This accounts for the different Plimsoll marks for FW and SW.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Kent Davis
Date: 24 Aug 07 - 11:26 PM

Pitcairn Island is not a country. It is a British colony. Nauru is the smallest island with country status at 8.1 sq. miles.

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 03:30 AM

That fresh water does indeed float on salt water is used in two situations that I know of from personal experience and I learned at school that some European sailors who'd run out of water off (but out of sight of) the eastern coast of Sth America in the 16th or 17th century asked some fishermen for spare fresh water; they were told to drop a bucket over the side and found it was fresh; they were in the outflow of the Amazon.

The two situations? Coral atolls in the Pacific may be only a few metres above sea level and relatively permeable but contain a lens of fresh water (from rain) that's 'floating above' the salt water. When police divers in Melbourne wish to search the bottom of the Yarra below Dights Falls (the upper limit of tidal influence) they prefer to do so when the tide is in. Unkind people from outside Victoria assert the Yarra is the only river that flows upside down (the mud's in the top layers rather than the bottom; they also say "It's too thick to drink and too thin to plough!) because of its mud content.   The mud makes visibility almost nil but the tidal salt water flows underneath it and forces it up from the bottom; the saltwater has no mud and provides excellent visibility on the river bed.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 03:39 AM

Hmmmm. Rowan, I just realized that we have the same phenomenon in southeast Alaska. The Pacific ocean, even though it doesn't look like an ocean, is at our front door. Because of all the islands dropped into it that break it up, it doesn't form waves. It looks far more like a lake or even a river.

When it is very cold, pan ice forms on top of the salt water and floats around. There are many fresh water streams discharging into the ocean and on occasion they freeze.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 04:29 AM

G'day Ebbie,
I suspect that, in discussions of salt or fresh water density, the floatability of ice is a distraction. When a given quantity of water (fresh or salt) cools, it increases its density as it does so until it freezes. When it freezes it actually expands and, by definition, becomes less dense than the liquid phase. This means it floats, whether the water is fresh or salt.

On top of that, one of the things we noticed in the Antarctic was that, when sea (and thus salt) water freezes, the ice 'crystals' force the salt out of the matrix, exstruding it and forcing the salt to crystallise. This left a layer of extruded salt crystals on the surface of the sea ice; they didn't stay around long as they always blew away out to sea and the extreme dryness of the wind caused the surface of the ice to ablate (change phase from solid to gas without going through the usual liquid phase in between) and form distinctive scoops in its surface.

Pan ice is lovely, and requires very still conditions (in both wind and water) to form and it rarely lasts long.

More geography.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 09:41 AM

Contrary to popular opinion countries, states, or provinces do not change color at their boundaries. In fact you seldom see any sign of a boundary on the ground or on the water.

As my geography students used to tell me when I was teaching map-making in Ethiopia in the 1960's:

"He is a clever and his home is far!"

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Joe_F
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 08:09 PM

In my latest posting, please ignore the whimsical insertion (by Firefox?) of a recently accessed URL between "4%" & "of".

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 09:31 PM

Apparently there are (or were) some natural lakes in Ohio.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/portals/7/pubs/Open_File_Rpts/05_Natural_Lakes_in_Ohio_1991.pdf

There are no natural lakes in West Virginia.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 09:35 PM

There are only two natural lakes in Virginia.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 09:56 PM

There were, or will be, natural lakes everywhere according to my most recent survey via time machine.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 09:59 PM

Janie, above somewhere I cited the stats on natural vs. manmade lakes in Ohio. If I remember correctly it said there are 2,000 plus acres of natural lakes in the state.

Only two in Virginia? So I suppose Sherando Lake isn't natural. We used to go there a lot. It's a pretty lake in a gorgeous setting. I wonder where the natural ones are?

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 10:03 PM

Ebbie, I don't know about the other stuff, but my Rog has been to Angel Falls. It was an awesome sight by all accounts.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 10:38 PM

Charley,
Your comment about colours and boundaries applies only partly in Oz, where the boundary of the country is largely dry (and various shades from white through brown to black) on one side and pretty wet (and various shades from pale through brown, green and/or blue) on the other. There were some islands offshore that everyone thought were part of Oz but the Ruddock prompting of Howard caused those islands and even some of the mainland to suddenly not be part of Oz for immigration or refugee and asylum purposes.

Of course they still (when there's political mileage in it) assert that Oz extends to the edge of the continental shelf or 200 nautical miles from shore (whichever is further) and colour discrimination gets tricky. But at least we don't (officially, anyway) have a colour discrimination at the border as we did in the days of the White Australia Policy. But the Howard application of the Pauline Hanson "One Notion Policy" has lately attempted to clarify that colour confusion. But some of us are trying to rectify all these problems at the earliest opportunity, which might be in full swing when you visit in October/November.

And did you ever get to the bottom of the "Four Colour Problem"?

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Kent Davis
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 10:43 PM

Janie,
I guess the number of lakes a state has is dependent on your definition of "lake". There is a small natural lake in the Eastern panhandle of West Virginia. It is called the Trout Pond and is about 2 acres. There are also at least two permanent ox-bow lakes, one in the Core Arboretum in Morgantown and one in Williamstown. They each cover perhaps an acre.

Ebbie,
The two natural lakes in Virginia are Mountain Lake and Lake Drummond. Mountain Lake is on top of a mountain in Southwest Virginia at an elevation of over 3,000 feet. The Mountain Lake Hotel is where the movie "Dirty Dancing" was filmed. Lake Drummond is in the Great Dismal Swamp, between Norfolk, Virginia and Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Kent

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 10:53 PM

Ebbie, the two Virginia lakes are Mountain Lake, in Giles County (where my great, great grandfather was sheriff.) I was surprised when I searched to see it was in the mountains. I didn't think there were any natural lakes in the southern Appalachians. According the wikipedia entry, they are rare.

The other one, Lake Drummond
is on the coastal plains, in the midst of the Great Dismal Swamp.

Now I know it is there, I'd like to go visit Mountain Lake. I've not been to Lake Drummond, but have spent some limited time paddling on a couple of the North Carolina lakes and bays in the Dismal Swamp.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Janie
Date: 25 Aug 07 - 11:16 PM

Hi Kent. Just googling around, it looks like surface area, and enough depth to have 'thermal properties' are the factors that go into whether a body of water gets labeled a lake. Even though I read it less than 20 minutes ago, I have alread forgotten what the thermal bit is about. Enough depth to have thermal gradients perhaps? It also looks like most people who classify these things, consider 5 acres to be the minimum surface area for a body of water to be called a a lake instead of a pond. However, I did not stumble into anything that indicated there is a set, formal criteria to apply to determine if a natural body of water is a lake or a pond.

I used to visit Core Arboretum regularly during the years I worked in Morgantown. I don't remember the ox-bow, but that was at least 25 years ago, and my interests and attention were generally firmly focused on the herbaceous plants. (Oh, the spring ephemerals that grew there!) I have never done more than driven through the Eastern Panhandle. I know of the Trout Pond, but never visited there. Never visited Williamstown either.

Daggum! This and the Appalachia thread are making me homesick!)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 06:49 AM

Istanbul hasn't been challended yet:

If one accepts the Suez channel as the border between Africa and Asia as is mostly done, then Al Qantara in Egypt also is situated on two continents with nearly all of it in Asia, but a small part in Africa. The land border between Europe and Asia is defined in so many different ways that I wouldn't be surprised if many more towns straddle Europe and Asia.

Another little known fact:
Panamacanal: The Atlantic entry is farther west than the Pacific entry.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 06:57 AM

"water (fresh or salt) cools, it increases its density as it does so until it freezes. When it freezes it actually expands"

That maximum density of (freash) water is achieved at about 4 deg C - the water at a temp lower than that up (down?) to zero degrees is lighter and rises to the surface where it freezes to ice - which is why fish can survive in ponds with ice surfaces ... Rowan has described salt water freezing, which is complicated by the dissolved salt - which depresses the freezing point to below 0 deg C... so I reasonably assume the maximum density before it starts expanding again may well be at lower than 4 deg C...

The layer of ice on top of the water actually acts as an insulator.

If all this did not occur, large bodies of water would freeze solid all the way to the bottom, complicating the creation, evolution, and sustainability of life in the universe...

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 07:42 AM

Returning to the question of the first paved road 'anywhere', I believe Detroit's claim is that it had the first poured concrete road in the US, which was laid in 1907. In world terms and taking paving as any hard surface, unqualified by type, Detroit is not in the running (neither, incidentally, is the great road-builder, Macadam). The Romans were building stone-surfaced roads more than 2000 years ago. The Appian Way was laid across marshland and you can still walk on large and impressive areas of its surviving surface. And the Romans were certainly not the first.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 08:09 AM

What a great thread...I always enjoyed Geography at school but.....could never find the classroom!

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 11:55 AM

Rowan mentioned above:

And did you ever get to the bottom of the "Four Colour Problem"?

Which I believe is a reference to the problem of color-coding states and provinces so that no two adjacent states have the same color, limited to only four colors, no easy problem if you are juggling 48 states. One does start in the United States where four of them meet and then try to work out in all directions. The problem used to drive cartographers crazy until they discovered how "cross-hatching" patterns or "dot" patterns could dramatically increase the options. They then slept like babies for generations. Now, of course, there are new countries every year and their delight and frsutration is that their work will never be complete!

One of our favorite tests for geography students would be to present them a well known outline of a region of the world "upside down" and ask them to identify where it was. Oh, what fun we used to have driving students crazy!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 01:10 PM

Minnesota is ofter referred to as "The Land of 10,000 Lakes". Impressive, huh?

Some years ago, a friend of mine from the Bronx challenged that (off the top of his head), saying something to the effect, "They must be counting little frog puddles as lakes."

Actually, it's not really 10,000 lakes. It's more like 11,000.

But how small can a body of water be and still qualify as a lake? The answer (at least for official Minnesota purposes, counting the 11,000) is, it has to be at least twenty acres.

Anything under twenty acres is a tarn.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 01:18 PM

I lived in southern Michigan for a couple of years. Perhaps the best thing about it, to me, was the lakes. I believe they said there are lakes every three miles or so. Or was that seven miles? I no longer remember but it was nice and we spent a lot of time in them: Klinger Lake, Stone Lake... Humph. I gues I've forgotten the names of others.

In late summer they became blood warm and the only way for me to get fresh and cool was to hang my long hair out the window. (I wasn't driving!)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 01:29 PM

I was less than impressed with Lake Lansing but the Great Lakes themselves compare well to the Great Pond we see from the coast of Maine.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Kent Davis
Date: 26 Aug 07 - 11:17 PM

Regarding the "four color problem":

The problem is not that MORE than four colors are needed. It is just the opposite. Why are more than four colors NEVER needed? The convention among mapmakers is that areas on a map that share NON-POINT boundaries must be given different colors. For example, a map of Great Britain would need two colors. (Wales and Scotland would be the same color because they do not share a boundary.) Now consider a map of Belgium and her neighbors. You need four colors: one for Belgium, another for France, a third for Germany, and a fourth for Luxemburg. You could use the same color for Luxemburg and the Netherlands, since they have no common boundary. Can you design a map that needs FIVE colors? Sound easy? Try it sometime! It has never been done. Even if you do not limit yourself to real geography, you probably can't do it. No one ever has. The "four-color problem" is the attempt to prove mathematically that four colors are all that are EVER needed. Please note that, for purposes of examining the four-color problem, discontinuous areas are considered separately. For example, in a North American map, Alaska and Lower 48 would be treated as if they were "different countries". There is apparently some controversy as to whether or not the problem has been solved mathematically.
Kent

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 07:06 AM

One of the states is bordered by 8 others. One is bordered by 1 other. One has only 1 syllable in its name. Without looking at a map, do you know which two states I am talking about?

Ever since I was a small boy I have loved maps. I'd spend hours pouring over them; then when I grew up what did I do? I went to sea where they are totally useless.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: John Hardly
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 07:17 AM

Ewing, Virginia is closer to eight other State capitols than it is to its own State capitol in Richmond.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:20 AM

Kendall-

My guess is California, Maine, and Maine (except when I stutter or sneeze).

"Ever since I was a small boy I have loved maps. I'd spend hours pouring over them; then when I grew up what did I do? I went to sea where they are totally useless."

So said Capt. Bailey before "discovering" the cove now known as Bailey's Mistake.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: curmudgeon
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:38 AM

Maine has one syllable and is only bordered by NH. I think, without looking, that Pennsylvania is the other - Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 10:23 AM

Interstates as airstrips? See http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 10:50 AM

I once heard a story that sounds plausible, but I have some doubts. Can anyone confirm this?

It goes: In some places the boundary between Canada and the U.S. is visible from the air—perhaps even from a satellite—because of differences in farm subsidies between the US and Canada. On one side, farm fields are planted right up to the border, but on the other side, land of equal fertility is uneconomical to farm.

I figure if this is true, you ought to be able to see it with Google Maps, but I wouldn't know where to look.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: pdq
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 11:00 AM

California borders Oregon, Nevada and Arizona. A bit short of the 8 mentioned.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Amos
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 11:04 AM

Three cheers for Barbara Mikkelson and the folks at Snopes. I love it when a particularly "sticky" mass meme gets punctured by their stalwart research and articulate debunking.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 11:28 AM

The Appalachins are the oldest mountains on Earth.


Rowan, Antarctica is not owned by any country but the US has the distinction for secretly breaking the biggest treaty signing there.
The US put a nuclear reactor/generator in an installation which subsequently had an unfortunate "incident".   shhh - its a secret.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 12:23 PM

Tennessee, Maine and Maine.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 03:09 PM

Another little geographical factoid:

For most of its length, the Mississippi River runs north-to-south. However, on the east side of New Orleans it runs south-to-north, so that the "east bank" is on the west and the "west bank" is on the east.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 03:52 PM

Jim-

We flew over the border between Quebec and Maine one time and there was a clear change in the landscape, with a farming lanscape in Quebec and a timber harvesting landscape in Maine.

Tennessee and not California! Damn! Well, California's BIGGER than Tennessee.

What is the lowest natural area in the world, not counting the bottom of large bodies of water? (How low can you go?)

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: bobad
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 03:59 PM

I once lived within sight of the Canada U.S. boundary which was visible as a swath kept clear of vegetation, but that was in the early 70's and I don't know if that is still done.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 04:17 PM

The Nile flows north. The St. Lawrence flows northeast and, I believe the Allagash also flows northeast.
The lowest spot on earth is the Dead sea, but I think the lowest land is Death Valley CA.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 05:18 PM

How low can you go?

In the States it's Death Valley at -282 feet

In Africa it is the surface of Lake Assal in the Afar Depression (Danakil Depression) adjacent to the Red Sea (used to be an arm of the Red Sea) at -502 feet.

In the Middle East/Asia the surface of the Dead Sea is at -1300 feet

However, the winner is in Antartica:

The Bentley Subglacial Trench, -8383 feet under ice!

I didn't know that!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 06:14 PM

And you can add Lake Eyre to your list of lowest land surfaces and Oz facts. Sometimes it's dry salt and occasionally it contains water. A dim memory recalls its altitude as -130 ft.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Celtaddict
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:10 PM

I read in a brochure put out by a state or national park (which I believe contained both a small lake and a large pond which was bigger than the lake; somewhere in northern New England) that if a body of water was shallow enough to have ground-rooted plants all the way across it, it was a pond; if it was deep enough it did not, it was a lake. It seems there should be an area to consider as well, as otherwise a well would be a 'lake.' I was interested to read it because it was around the time 'On Golden Pond' was out, and that body of water is obviously good sized.
Also, I grew up in Oklahoma, and after the Dust Bowl days the state government said in effect 'never again' and subsidized farmers building bodies of water to the point that basically they were paid to make lakes, so that virtually every farm has a minimum of one body of water, and many have more; in school they taught us that Oklahoma then (late 50s?) had more miles of freshwater shoreline than Minnesota. It glitters wonderfully if you fly over in the early morning.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:34 PM

The Bed of Lake Eyre has been used to set Land Speed Records.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:39 PM

The fastest river flowing North is the Niagra but it is not the biggest.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:51 PM

Charley N.: When I took geology, ice counted as a mineral, so the top of it is land. If it really counts as water, then Greenland is an atoll. %^)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 09:54 PM

Well, I ain't much on this stuff... I thopught that Mars was a continent until jus' a couple years ago where I got in a heated arguemnt about Martians an' why there ain't more of them around...

Yeah, even bet the feller that Mar4s was like over there somewhere 'round Haw-why-hee...

Problem is that it ain't... Fir thjose of you who ain;t been followin' yer sciencin' it's like another planet... Woulda folled me... What they gonna think of next???

Well, nevermind... You can bet it's gonna be a douzy...

But, hey... I lives in the Shenandoah valley and the Shenendoah River runs north... Now, according to the locals 'round here, who drenk alot, that don't mean jack to jack... But I thenk that there ain't too may rivers in the northern hemosphere that run north... I thin the Nile runs north but I would place no bet on it.... Might of fact I wouldn't bet that there ain't a million rivers that run north up her in the northern hemispshere but....

...I still think that thhis situtaion ight be kinda special???

I donno...

If it ain't, please don't list 10 million rivers that run north up here in the northern hemisphere 'cause I just couldn't handle 10 million rivers...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 10:03 PM

"ain't too may rivers in the northern hemosphere that run north... I thin the Nile runs north but I would place no bet on it"

If you get too far in de Nile, den you end up in de Mediterranean...

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 10:18 PM

OK Bobert, I'll raise your "10 million" to the power "nought" and just give you the Lena.

In New England, the natural water bodies are neither lakes nor ponds but elevated lunette-bordered lagoons strung along the watershed.

But then, very few of the definitions created in Europe and North America have relevance to the landscapes south of the equator.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bert
Date: 27 Aug 07 - 10:52 PM

The pearl divers of Bahrain collect fresh water from springs on the sea bed.

Just outside of Dezful in Iran there is a stretch of road that doubles as an airstrip. You drive along this quiet country raod an suddenly it widens into a runway for well over a mile. There is a line right down the middle which had a strange fascination for motorists. One time a couple of trucks colided head on because they were both straddling the line.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:24 AM

On the Stuart Highway, south of Darwin, there used to be only one sealed width of road with, at various intervals, other sealed strips parallel to it on the western side and some 100 metres or so away. These were the airstrips for a large number of bomber and fighter squadrons during WWII. Many of them got used, unofficially and 'illegally', as drag racing strips until the authorities started connecting them with bits of sealed highway, giving those sections of the Stuart Highway separated northbound and southbound lanes.

But most of the squadrons have signage celebrating their WWII presence, and the cemetery at Adelaide River is the War Cemetery for those personnel that didn't survive and who are still properly celebrated.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:48 AM

The Cautionary Future in the mind of Lisa Simpson, should she fail Physical Education

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (to Lisa Simpson): "I sentence you to twenty years on Monster Island!" (whispers)"Don't worry, it's only a name!"
Lisa Simpson (later, as she is running from monsters): "He said it was only a name!"
Running Man: "He meant that Monster Island is really a peninsula!"

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: robomatic
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:50 AM

I was taught that Alaska is the furthest North, West, and East of the US States.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 05:07 AM

Doesn't sound to me that all of Ohio's lakes are manmade

Why did I read that last word as "marmalade"?

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:09 AM

I believe that the most easterly point in the USA is West Quoddy Head in Lubec Maine.(East Quoddy is in Canada)

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: pdq
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 09:14 AM

It is possible that some of the Aleutian Islands are so for west that they cross the line and are therefore east.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 09:47 AM

An old and so far, unproven story.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: pdq
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 10:07 AM

Place yourself at the Prime Meridian, which runs through Greenwich, England. One direction will be west until you get to the International Date Line which is precisely opposite (180º away) from the Greenwich Meridian. Pretty sure some of the Aleutian Islands cross that line.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 10:10 AM

Glaciers did a massive job of shaping and reshaping Maine's landscape. We're still in recovery! They ground down our exisiting hills, gouged out valleys, the river beds of the meltwater streams from under the glaciers became ridges after the surrounding ice sheet retreated, ponds were created in holes ("kettles") gouged out by large chucks of ice. The entire coastal plain got flooded by sea water, bounced up after the glacial mass had retreated, and then sank down again drowning new forests, the stumps of which you can still see in the salt marshes and along some beaches.

We haven't seen any glaciers recently in Maine but no one has a clue what really triggers them.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:06 PM

Ok, now I have to check my globe.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:13 PM

According to my globe, the date line takes a sharp dog leg to the west to avoid having any Aleutian island west of the line. It barely misses NEAR,ATTU and RAT islands.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 12:19 PM

I think it's established fact that part of the Aleutians are in the east.

"...ponds were created in holes ("kettles..." Charley Noble

Kettles are interesting, Charley. In southeast Alaska there are many places where a kettle is sometimes only 10-15 across and perhaps 8 feet deep and is covered by short grasses with no accumulated water. You could keep a puppy in them or even a horse.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 01:24 PM

The dogleg in the International Dateline is just one example of time zone lines being shifted to accomodate human concerns. For example, Indiana is in Eastern Time, but the northwestern corner is in Central Time because so many of the people who live there commute into Chicago for work.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 01:58 PM

Time lines--whether time zones within, say, the US, or the International Date Line--are not geographical. They are economic/political policies, set as a location. The International Date Line is approximately coincident with the--what would be the word?--"anti-prime meridian"? But it's not identical for economic and political reasons.

I may amend that. The prime meridian (Greenwich) is a philosophical/political concept. And it runs through Greenwich only because of past politics. At one time there was serious controversy whether what was to be the "prime meridian" should instead run through Paris.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 05:52 PM

Ebbie-

If you like "kettles" you'll love "kames" which are the inverse, a pile of gravel that was deposited during glacial retreat forming a small hill. They were less useful to settlers than the meandering riverbed deposits, eskers, which in many areas became roadbeds.

But most people here probably couldn't tell a "tarn" from a "cirque" unless they fell into one.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 06:12 PM

Longitudes and Time Zones make for interesting stories, the Aleutian islands being an example. When Charley reaches Sydney he may hear or read references to the Northern Tablelands (where our New England is located) as being in the northwest of the NSW. The longitude of Armidale, the major city in New England, is further east than Sydney's. That means the sunrise times given (by implication to apply to all in NSW) are a bit late for us and even later if you're 3 hrs' drive away at Coffs Harbour. But then, those of us outside the sandstone curtain regard references to "NSW" as usually meaning "Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong".

Similar provinciality is behind the other story, usually involving two old friends yarning in some insignificant little hamlet. One says to the other "Did you know that the line from the North Pole to the South Pole goes directly through the centre of our town?"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:12 PM

Rowan-

I always thought navigating would be a lot simpler if they just projected longitude and latitudes lines from satillites onto the surface of the Earth, with the coordinates neatly labeled wherever they crossed. The grid could be made more decorative by using different colored lasers.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:22 PM

Charley Noble told us:

But most people here probably couldn't tell a "tarn" from a "cirque" unless they fell into one.

A cirque may well contain a tarn, but I don't see how a tarn could contain a cirque.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:31 PM

Oregon has some hillocks that defy understanding and I understand that Washington state has 30some very round low, discrete hills that some people theorize are Indian graves, storehouses or something of that ilk.

Kettles, on the other hand, have such short grasses in them that it reminds me of being lined with fur.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 08:18 PM

Well, I used to live in a place where if you headed either north, south, east or west you eventually crossed the state line into another state---and, no matter your direction, it was always the same state. I think that it's the only such location in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 08:31 PM

Oh, tarn it, Dave, you've proven me wrong!

Dick, some of the most amusing oddities in our borders have to do with the original surveyers getting lost. Here in Maine we even have a name for the residual bits that somehow didn't end up in any established township; we call them "gores."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 09:25 AM

Charley, I know about both cirques and tarns from the days when I used to be a mountain climber.

Actually, I just might have known about tarns from my youth in Minnesota, and the stricture that a lake is only a lake if it's 20 acres or bigger; smaller than that, it's a tarn. That just MIGHT have been then, or after my climbing days.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: pdq
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 11:27 AM

"Rosie O'Donnell is so fat, the last time her doctor gave her a physical exam he called it geography."

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 12:27 PM

The Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal is further West than the Pacific entrance.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Skivee
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 12:51 PM

That was me above. The geography teacher ate my cookie.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:26 PM

Cirques and tarns are both a bit thin on the ground in Oz, although Tassie has some lovely examples. And coloured lines from satellites would only raise complaints from the colour blind and the greenies.

But here's one for those of you in the northern hemisphere;
what is the name of Australia's tallest mountain?

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bert
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:33 PM

what is the name of Australia's tallest mountain?

Fred?

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 07:35 PM

Oolaroo?

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Rowan
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 08:03 PM

Kendall,
Uluru is our largest monolith but not our tallest mountain. But, nice try!

Bert,
I used to teach the trainee tour guides at the local TAFE and our course was paid a visit by a similar group from Sydney. I took them to Mt Yarrowyck, a granite lump with some Aboriginal archaeology, including a rock art site that is accessible to visitors. As we walked along the track we passed a eucalypt and their leader asked me "What do you call that tree?"

I couldn't resist answering "Fred!"

He couldn't control his laughter, and said he'd never heard that response before.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 10:27 PM

I was going to suggest "Sheila" but better late than never.

As I was a-goin' up Yarrowyck Mountain,
I met Colonel Rowan an' his money he was countin';
I rifled me pistols and drew forth me sabor -
"Stand an' deliver for I am a bold deceiver!"

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 09:00 AM

"what is the name of Australia's tallest mountain?"

Ah well, things can have many names. they can have the name people ascribe to them, an official name, or the name by which they know themsleves... :-)


Like cats, really...

:-P

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 09:26 AM

Charlie, I thought that line was, "I RATTLED" my pistols...

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Amos
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 09:46 AM

Well, Kendall, it was until Charlie got aholt of it. :D



A

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 12:34 PM

100. Whatever that means.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 12:56 PM

Kendall-

I sing 'em the way I heard 'em!

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Balls an' all!
Riley with his ol' big drum!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 12:57 PM

Not only does Florida's St. Johns River flowi northward, it's among the world's slowest flowing major rivers. The total drop in elevation from headwaters to mouth, a distance of 315 miles, is only 30 feet. Its flow is so weak that incoming and outgoing tides are noticeable 160 miles upstream, and it is sufficiently brackish 100 miles upstream to support a commercial blue crab fishery.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 04:16 PM

Some of our rivers in Maine and New Brunswick actually reverse their flow according to the tide. We even have reversing waterfalls. (Goggle Alna, Maine)

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: kendall
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 04:56 PM

I sing them the way they make sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 05:44 PM

Good gracious - reversing waterfalls? The laws of gravity repeal themselves in Maine? I've got to go read that link.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 10:30 PM

We have up North, tides of about 30 feet. There is one place where the tide flows through some narrow rock cuttings so hard that it is considered impossible to navigate safely except at 'tween tides' still water. Looks a bit like a water fall.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bert
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:22 AM

Thanks Rowan.

I have a guitar named Fred. How it got that name is a long story not relevant to this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:32 AM

Spike Milligan (of The Goons) used to name all sorts of things Fred. But then he was a self confessed nutter...

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Bert
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:34 AM

So am I.

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 03:57 PM

Here's a clip about the reversing falls in Alna:

Farther downstream it (Sheepscot River) drops over the Head Tide Dam to mix with the incoming tide, flowing by the delightful antique houses of Alna. After meandering through Sheepscot Village, with its reversing falls, the river slides through Newcastle and bustling Wiscasset, once one of the busiest ports in North America.

We used to sing a verse of lamentation about Head Tide:

I lost my maid in Head Tide...

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Little Known Facts in Geography (?)
From: Dazbo
Date: 01 Sep 07 - 01:40 PM

IIRC the reason Greenwich was eventually chosen over Paris (and other possibilities) was that by that time the British had mapped more of the world (and arguably more accurately). So, almost by default, the largest number of maps and charts already had Greenwich as 0. (And of course it had the even greater benefit of pissing off the French - never a bad thing in my mind!)