Which Way Does She Run

[mic]

Does the Little Piney flow north or south?

[Outside Bend]

It generally flows north to the Gasconade.

[David Unnerstall]

It is my observation that all rivers north of the Ozark Plateau flow north and all rivers south of the Ozark Plateau flow south.

[Al Agnew]

Little Piney begins by flowing generally due north, then turns and flows almost due west into the Gasconade.

A little correction in terminology, David...the Ozark Plateau covers pretty much the whole Ozarks--to be a little technical, it's actually three "dissected plateaus". However, you're right that streams coming off the north side of the divide in Missouri flow more or less north, streams coming off the south side of the divide more or less south. And over much of the Ozarks, the land on and near the divide is less eroded, and preserves more of the old plateau surface. In the more rugged parts of the Ozarks near the larger streams, the only way you can tell that the land was once a plateau is because most of the ridge-tops are around the same height.

The three plateaus are the Salem, which is the lowest and covers much of the Missouri Ozarks, the Springfield, next highest, and the Boston Mountains in AR, the highest. Geomorphology, the study of the shaping of land forms, is one of my interests, and I've got a whole bunch of books that cover how the Ozarks were formed that I've studied a lot. Probably not of much interest to many, but I really get into that stuff.

[chub minnow]

Lots of streams between the Boston and Springfield flow north - King's river, War Eagle etc. In fact almost no rivers flow south in Northwest / Central Ark.