Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Blue Nile, which rises above Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The two streams meet at Khartoum, Sudan. North of
Cairo, Egypt, the Nile empties into the Mediterranean, fanning out into a 115-mile-wide delta.
Amazon
With its beginnings high in the Peruvian Andes, the Amazon flows through the world's largest
equatorial rain forest, draining 40 percent of South America.
Missouri-Mississippi
These two rivers join just above St. Louis, Missouri, to form one of the world's
longest rivers. The Missouri, flowing out of the mountains in Montana, is actually the longer of the two.
But the Mississippi has historically been more significant as a transportation artery in the development of
the American continent.
Yangtze-Kiang (Chang Jiang)
China's longest river rises in the Kunlun Mountains of Tibet, running
through China's agricultural heartland and providing 40 percent of China's electricity through hydroelec-
tric stations before it reaches the East China Sea at Shanghai.
Ob-Irtyish
Situated in Siberia, the Ob and its chief tributary, the Irtyish, are frozen almost half the year.
Huang Ho (Yellow)
Rising in the Kunlun Mountains like the Yangtze, the Yellow is named for its
loess, or fertile yellow silt. It is also known as “China's Sorrow” because its terrible flooding in the past
has been extremely destructive.
Paraná
Overshadowed by the Amazon, this Brazilian river is an important commercial artery and the
site of the world's largest hydroelectric plant.
Zaire (Congo)
Dr. David Livingstone was the first European to explore this African river, perhaps the
most famous of the sub-Saharan African rivers. It rises as the Lualaba River in the center of Africa and
flows north through Zaire (formerly the Belgian Congo) until it turns in a westward arc and then empties
into the Atlantic.
Heilong Jiang (Amur)
This river rises in Mongolia and forms the boundary between northeastern Ch-
ina (Mongolia) and eastern Russia.
Milestones in Geography IV
The Nineteenth Century
1807
American inventor Robert Fulton (1765-1815) tests his
North River Steam Boat
on New York
City's East River. Later renamed the
Clermont
, it begins regular runs on the Hudson River between
New York and Albany. Although not the first steamboat, it is the first practical and economically
viable one. In 1819, the paddle steamer
Savannah
became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic.
Even though it still relied largely on sail power, its success made steam viable and ushered in the
era of steam travel.
1824
American Jim Bridger (1804-81), one of the most celebrated of the famous “mountain men”
who traded, trapped, and explored throughout the American West, discovers the Great Salt Lake in
modern Utah and thinks its briny water is an arm of the Pacific Ocean. It was also Bridger who
opened the Oregon Trail, the principal westward route for settlers coming from the East.
