[HN Gopher] The Source of the Nile River: A Mystery That Spanned...
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The Source of the Nile River: A Mystery That Spanned Three
Millennia
Author : msolujic
Score : 77 points
Date : 2021-12-25 10:39 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.discovermagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.discovermagazine.com)
| Flankk wrote:
| That is insane. Lake Victoria is in Uganda. So the water flows
| halfway across Africa through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.
| garmaine wrote:
| And, as noted at the end of the article, Lake Victoria isn't
| even the real beginning. 4,100 miles from start to finish.
| gshubert17 wrote:
| or, perhaps, even farther:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/2%C2%B016'55.9%22S+29%C2%B.
| ..
|
| shows a location near Gisovu, Rwanda, with a photograph taken
| in 2019 by Keiko Schmidt, of a sign which reads, "This is the
| furthest source of the Nile. Distance from Egypt: 6,719 km
| (4,175 miles). 2006: Neil McGregor, Cam McLeay, Garth
| McIntyre."
| ummonk wrote:
| My intuitive reaction was "that's long but doesn't feel like
| it would be wildly different from the Mississippi with the
| Missouri tributary". If Wikipedia is to be trusted, looks
| like Mississippi/Missouri is in the same ballpark: https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_by_length#List_...
| sideshowb wrote:
| Even assuming you map a river catchment completely, how is the
| source defined anyway? Furthest water drop from the sea (as
| measured along the river)? Except in odd cases where that's an
| underground resurgence, it's going to be pretty unspectacular, so
| what's the attraction?
|
| Mapping the watershed on the other hand, that's a nice thing to
| know.
| thathndude wrote:
| Pretty sure James May Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond solved
| this a few years ago. It was part of a BBC documentary if I
| recall correctly.
|
| :)
| haloblue wrote:
| Came to post this. Top Gear found it back in 2015 or so.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Huh, that's cool. I live by the river Amstel. Wikipedia says "The
| Amstel begins where the canal Aarkanaal and the river Drecht
| meet, just north of the village Nieuwveen in the province of
| South Holland."
|
| But there is so much goddamn water around here, no one really
| cares whether the "source" is somewhere in the alps.
| murbard2 wrote:
| > Richard Francis Burton was one of the first Europeans to visit
| Mecca while in disguise as a Pashtun. Burton supposedly spoke
| dozens of languages
|
| With any luck he's got the source already.
| Thin_icE wrote:
| Didn't know about this, very interesting read!
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| other than fame it sounds exploration without much of a payout.
| seems comparable to finding what root of the tree is longest.
| what am I missing?
| BucketsMcG wrote:
| I've been on a boat on Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile.
| It's pretty cool how you can see, clear as day, a line across the
| water where it starts to flow. From there it's downhill all the
| way to the sea.
|
| Besides that, Lake Tana's a beautiful place. I spent an afternoon
| visiting peaceful island monasteries, where the monks cheerfully
| handed me 500-year-old goatskin Bibles to leaf through.
| Spectacularly beautiful things with Ge'ez calligraphy on one
| page, and elaborate illustrations opposite for people like me who
| had no hope of being able to read it.
|
| Ethiopia's the most wonderful, misunderstood country.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Why is it misunderstood?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Ethiopia's the most wonderful, misunderstood country."
|
| It is still in the middle of a civil war right now, so not the
| best time to visit.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/11/the-war-nerd-the-
| tig...
|
| I like the war nerd's dispassionate perspective on things,
| but I'm not an expert so I don't know how "correct" this is.
| rayiner wrote:
| Maybe it's accurately understood. :-/
| srean wrote:
| Brahmaputra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmaputra_River is
| another notable river whose upper course was not well known till
| fairly recently.
|
| What fills me with wonder and awe is that it is believed to be
| older than the Himalayas. Yet it cuts through the Himalayas,
| originating further North but traveling South, to eventually
| drain into the Bay of Bengal, sharing the delta with Ganges -- I
| would be hard pressed to find a more apt metaphor about
| overcoming Himalayan obstacles.
|
| The river Indus shares the source, Manasarovar with Brahmaputra.
| Indus lines the subcontinent on the West, draining into the
| Arabian sea, while Brahmaputra lines it on the East. So
| essentially, one can consider the subcontinent to be encircled by
| water.
| httgp wrote:
| Another fun fact about Brahmaputra - it's the only river in
| India that doesn't have a feminine name.
| srean wrote:
| Among the largest rivers perhaps yes but I will not be
| surprised if there are many that are male. I could think of
| two rightaway, Ravi and Damodar.
| ummonk wrote:
| Amazingly, the Sutluj and Ghaghara also originate in the same
| location, and Ganga's headwaters are in a mountain range
| nearby. It's almost like Mt. Kailash is the source of all the
| big rivers in the region.
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