Re: MtMan-List: direction?

[Tomactor@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/10/98 12:11:13 PM Pacific Standard Time,
lahtirog@gte.net writes:

<<  < stream. >>
 >
 > A good way to remember that is the old saying, "red, right, returning" I
agree
 > with you Capt. Lathi. >>

 Hello the list

I don't want to start a big fight, but I asked this question of Merriam -
Webster some time ago and they replied "looking downstream." Subsequent
reading confirmed this.

 One such place is in "Astoria", by Washington Irving. 
 "Astoria" p. 257 tells of Hunt taking the right bank, and later, on page 262,
25 lines from the top: For the two following days they continued
westward...along river...until they crossed it just before its junction with
the Snake, which was still running north.

Read Chittenden's "The American Fur Trade of the Far West. Page 191-192,
volume 1
"Hunt, with 22 persons...took the right bank. ...retrograde march resolved
upon...Hunt now left Day and Crooks and hastened on to Weiser River, which he
had passed on the 26th of the previous month. Among the
Indians...upstream...he remained until Dec. 21.

Since  the Weiser comes in from the east, if Hunt looked downstream he would
be on the right bank.

There are many other references. I will look for some more. And I'll bet you
will find it in your own reading now hat your subconscious is working on it.

I do agree that people who use this reference should also use other clues.

I will look for some more, but I have no doubt what is meant by the right or
left side. It is looking downstream at the mouth.

Tom Laidlaw