What is sometimes called the Law of Baer was actually arrived at as a result of work pursued independently by both Baer and Babinet. Babinet (1859) published first, but the quantitative study of von Baer (1860) was more definite. The joint name is therefore justified, although considerable controversy developed among the various proponents. It was believed that the rotation of the earth influenced the course of river development, i.e., under the Coriolis force (q.v., Vol. I) all moving particles in the northern hemisphere tend to bear right, and correspondingly those in the southern hemisphere bear left. The river banks on the stressed side would tend to recede faster than on the other. The question of whether the stream is oriented in a meridional direction is quite secondary and may be neglected (Günther, 1882; the early literature has been reviewed by Némenyi, 1952).
Gilbert (1884)computed that a stream such as the lower Mississippi would erode its right bank about 9% more than...
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References
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Fairbridge, R.W. (1968). Baer—babinet law . In: Geomorphology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31060-6_22
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