The Scottish Highlands, Appalachians, and the Atlas are the same mountain range | Hacker News Reader

The Scottish Highlands, Appalachians, and the Atlas are the same mountain range

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281 pointskdamica78 comments

From a human perspective, that settlers from one part of the range found a home in another part of the same range is interesting - the heavy Irish and Scottish settlement in Appalachia, taking language and music with them.

And politics.

Truly fascinating account of this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-se...

This was a great rec, thanks. Really enjoyed it.

Albion's Seed is an incredible book; I recommend it to everybody.

>But by 1750, the Quakers were kind of on their way out; by 1750, they were a demographic minority in Pennsylvania, and by 1773 they were a minority in its legislature as well. [...] What happened? The Quakers basically tolerated themselves out of existence. They were so welcoming to religious minorities and immigrants that all these groups took up shop in Pennsylvania and ended its status as a uniquely Quaker society.

Fascinating.

Being less than 50% of the lawmakers in a society as active followers of your regilion seems quite far from non-existance.

By that metric, Catholics, Jews, Athiests and African-Americans don't exist, and have never existed, and probably will never exist in the USA (they didn't and don't even exist when grouped together as "non-protestants").

Back to Quakers, shortly fter they "tolerated themselves out of exisitence" in Pennsylvania, they manage to have input into the Constitution of the newly formed US so punching above their weight for people who didn't exist.

So informative and what a great read. Thanks for sharing.

I've seen a few of the anti-Irish marches they're unfathomably still allowed to hold in Glasgow, Scotland, and it seems like the politics of hate is identical.

The Orange Order marches?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_walk

I'm not sure they can be described as "anti Irish".

You should visit Northern Ireland during marching season - around July 12th - and then decide whether or not you think Orange matches could be described as “anti Irish”.

Unless you’re going to engage in a bit of sophistry - “the people who participate might be anti-Irish but the actual Orange Order as an organisation is simply expressing its fondness for the Act of Union” - I don’t see how you could not see the anti-Irish aspects of the Orange matches.

What exactly do you mean by anti-Irish marches? There are no such marches so far as I am aware. If, as another commenter has speculated, you are talking about Orange Order marches, these are not anti-Irish. They are pro-Unionist and anti-Irish-Nationalist. They are not banned because the UK doesn't usually ban people for walking down the street together.

It seems very out of place that these people simply walking down the street as you say, were openly singing about killing people based on their ethnicity. Same type of nuance as the crowds waiting for MLK at the bridge in Selma being purely interested in advocating for States' rights.

Similar people, similar politics of hate however you want to dress it up.

Do you think your analysis is undermined by the fact that most Orange walks take place in Northern Ireland and are conducted by Northern Irish people? There are even Orange walks that take place in the Republic of Ireland. Only a handful take place in Scotland.

They are not anti-Irish; they are Unionist. If you don't know what that means, consider educating yourself. You should also consider not viewing everything through the lens of US history and American race relations. The specifics matter.

The hate festival I witnessed myself in Scotland was no dry political walk as you're trying to disingeneously paint it - it was a manifestitation of absolute anti-Irish hate by a bunch of far-right types singing songs about killing people based on their ethnicity.

I've no interest in learning why these people think it's OK to express their deeply offensive views on the streets of a Scottish city, or indeed any other street or city.

They are anti-Irish. That’s baked into their identity and was added as an ingredient literally centuries ago. US history has nothing to do with it except insofar as they brought their bigotry with them when they went there.

The people who march in Orange parades may be from Northern Ireland but they do not consider themselves Irish in any way and would be deeply offended if they were described as such. British. Ulster Scots. Northern Irish at a stretch. But never Irish.

The Highland Games held in Grandfather Mtn, NC each year is one of the largest outside Scotland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Games_in_North_Caro...

A small town in Appalachia I grew up in had a Scottish Museum and Festival. Franklin, NC

But how many visitors from Scotland would view it a authentic, vs kitsch?

And Atlantic Canada.

Most of the Scots who originally settled in Appalachia were from the lowlands on the English border, not the highlands. This is the same population that was used to colonize Northern Ireland, and similarly, most of the Irish immigrants to Appalachia were from this population of resettled lowland Scots.

Shouldn't the line in the UK be further north, closer to the Iapetus Suture? IIRC that's the collision of northern and southern parts of Great Britain, and the geological differences translated to modern cultural differences, and consequentially the Scottish-English border is roughly close to it too. The wikipedia page also mentions the Caledonian orogeny.

> The Caledonian orogeny united the northern and southern portions of present-day Great Britain. The Iapetus Suture runs from the Solway Firth to Lindisfarne. The Anglo-Scottish border runs near and roughly parallel to the suture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_Suture

I assume the map was for illustrative purposes, as the landmasses depicted in it have decidly modern shapes.

Yup. Surely the English Channel shouldn't be there.

The ancient forests and swamps that bordered this mountain range form the coal deposits which range from the US Appalachian region to Wales and Scotland, to northern Spain, through France, Germany, and Silesia. These would, some time later, become the regions which lead the steam-powered Industrial Revolution. I'd first learned this fact some years ago reading Matthias Weissenbacher's Sources of Power.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/sources-of-power-how-energy-f...

Other than China, Australia, and South Africa, this represents a huge portion of the planet's coal reserves.

Title is a bit misleading. The "little" Atlas near the Atlantic coast isn't usually considered part of the Atlas mountains and is usually called the anti-atlas. The "real" Atlas range is much (much) younger.

Very cool given that Appalachian settlers were largely Scottish highlanders.

Just moving to the other side of the mountain range.

Scottish highlander immigrants were not large settlers of Appalachia. Scottish highlander immigrants largely settled in northern New York and coastal areas in southern colonies. The Cape Fear, NC area was a significant area of Scottish highlander settlement.

Appalachia was settled largely by the Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish immigrated from the Ulster area of Ireland where they were known as the Ulster Protestants. The Ulster Protestants originally immigrated to Ulster area through a mixture of voluntary and forced relocation from the Scottish lowlands and northern England.

Thank you for this, as I always had assumed that Scots-Irish just meant settled by a mixture of Scots and Irish, not the Ulster Scots.

Settlers to Southern Appalachia were from the English - Scottish borderlands. Lands that were historically contested.

“Albion’s Seed” is an excellent book describing the migrations from the British Isle to America

The Bastle houses[1] are really interesting. Shows what a vibrant time and place that was.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastle_house

We have a province called Nova Scotia up here. In its French translation, the latin gets lost and it's just literally New Scotland.

This is also where the term 'HillBilly' originates. Hills because they live in the hills, but 'Billy' because they followed William of Orange ("Bill"), the protestant king of England.

I have a strong recollection that part of the Appalachians are stuck in South America, but I'm not finding much information online. Here's one very old article discussing some research into it.

http://www.kencroswell.com/SouthAmericanAppalachians.html

It is odd/amazing that the Ouachita mountains are included in the "Central Pangean Mountains" given how far west they are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouachita_Mountains

comment on the blog says they should not be. It's by Bob Costas but surprisingly missing a half hour preamble of fluff about the early life and struggle of that little hill before it became a mountain range.

and they are ooooold. Older-than-trees old.

and separated for much of that time. at some point the unique life experience of each side of the range renders them individual; it might be more proper to say they're descendants of the single original range.

On the other hand if we could convince them to get back together the shipping costs to Europe would plummet and that would be good for the economy.

I am all for a direct rail service from the Highlands to Appalachia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_Through_the_Deeps

Aren’t most mountains older than trees? Maybe even all of them?

Certainly not all, e.g. trees are ~8x older than the Himalayas. I think trees might actually even be slightly older than the Central Pangean Mountains.

I suspect gp may have been referring to specific mountains and specific trees, not trees as a species.

No, they were referring to trees in general. As in, this particular mountain range has existed since before the first tree evolved on earth.

Edit: My mistake, thought you were referring to the original “older than trees” comment.

No I wasnt.

hprotagonist was

Correct.

Many mountain ranges are surprisingly young, geologically speaking. They rise quickly, but also erode rapidly. The tallest ranges (Himalaya, Andes) are relatively young, at roughly 20--50 mya based on a quick Wikipedia read.

The higher and more rugged the range, the younger, in all likelihood.

Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze.

Wikipedia says trees have been in existence for 370 million years. Are these mountains even older than that?

yep! by about 80-100 million years.

They're probably older than dirt.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32373985

There's a meme that criss-crosses Facebook from time to time that notes that in general, one doesn't find any skeletal remains in the rock formations in the Appalachians. You might find them washed into a cave, but you won't find any in the rock itself, as those mountain formations predate the evolution of skeletons.

Older than bones, older than bones.

But a lot younger that a lot of other mountains (though not the Alps, Rockies, Himalayas, or Andes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_orogenies

Not only older than trees, but older than dirt.

Literally.

Dirt, in the sense of organic topsoil, requires plant life, and often the action of burrowing insects, reptiles, and mammals to form. The Appalachian range formed about the same time that life was first colonising land, ~480 mya, and it's likely that soil formation post-dates this by a significant extent.

This also means that the Appalachians have some of the oldest rivers in the world, including the ... inaccurately named ... New River, the Susquehanna, and French Broad River, all dating to ~260--340 mya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_by_age

> This also means that the Appalachians have some of the oldest rivers

In the case of the New River (unsure about the others), it is the other way around: the river is not old because the mountains are old, but the mountains are old because the river is older. The New River predates the mountains that surround it.

Fair point, and I'd known that once.

That said, the river runs through the Appalachians, and is quite old.

See also Tom Scott's "The 400,000,000-Year Link Between Scotland and Canada"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAKwRou6HUw

Ouch, there's an error in the article. Ouachita are not part of the same range, as that's inland. A poster on the site already pointed that out.

It is called out separately from the Appalachians. Wikipedia cites this article, which is terse enough to not be convincing to my lay eyes.

https://archives.datapages.com/data/sepm_sp/SP22/Sedimentary...

This book chapter cites the above and has a picture explanation:

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DyF3BQAAQBAJ&oi=...

Also it's Laurasia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurasia), not Laurussia.

From https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/46485/ouachita-moun...:

> Starting around 340 million years ago, a tectonic plate that had previously been attached to Africa and South America collided with the North American plate. The process helped form the supercontinent of Pangaea, and it thrust the ancient sea floor skyward. The similarities between rock layers of the Ouachita Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains indicate that they were part of a massive mountain chain formed by this collision. Once elevated, the mountains soon commenced eroding.

> About 200 million years ago, Pangaea began to break apart. The breakup wrenched apart the supersized mountain range, leaving a wide swath of low-lying land between the Ouachita Mountains in the west and the Appalachian Mountains in the east. Low-profile land persists today across much of the southeastern United States.

And yet the whiskey is so different, obviously Bourbon is far superior, with its sweet oaky flavor. The south iterated and improved the idea. :)

Ha I wonder who will take that bait :-D

I love both Bourbon and Scotch[0], but despite similarities in their ingredients they’re distinct enough in flavour enough that I don’t think a direct comparison is possible or makes sense. It’s weird that this largely comes from a couple of differences (using new vs used oak barrels, and climate where the whisk[e]y is aging). I will grant that Bourbon is a bit more versatile though - there’s a lot of wonderful cocktails that it really works well in, I’ve yet to see a scotch cocktail I like!

[0] - and American Single Malt, and Rye and Corn Whiskey

> I don’t think a direct comparison is possible or makes sense

I agree.

> I’ve yet to see a scotch cocktail I like!

I don't think scotch is for cocktails, although I sometimes have a scotch with ginger ale, and I often take my scotch with a wee splash of water.

There are some (Penicillin and the Rob Roy off the top of my head) but I don't like them. But yeah good point re ginger beer and lime - that can be quite refreshing.

I'm quite content with drinking Scotch neat though.

I’m now imagining a sketch of British/American misunderstanding is similar to the Two Ronnies’ “Four candles”:

“I would like some biscuits and gravy.”

“Biscuits? And gravy? What do you mean, like bourbon?”

“Why would I put bourbon on my biscuits?”

“Bourbon biscuits”

“No, gravy biscuits”

“Gravy biscuits? So, like oxo cubes?”

And so on.

For the confused:

https://external-preview.redd.it/4_BpYSWJqOGo2R_SKAq9o8VVlec...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuits_and_gravy

Actually iirc bourbon predates scotch as we know it. Scotch is and always has been made using old bourbon barrels.

Given that the first recorded instance of Scottish Whisky is from 1494 (ref. https://www.glenfiddich.com/us/explore/ambassadors-blog/2014...) I don't think Bourbon pre-dates it :P

From the article it wasn't till the 1940's that Whisky started using a lot of bourbon barrels.

Scotch ‘as we know it’

>From this point on the flavor profile of Scotch whisky was changed forever going from the heavy rich fruity characteristics seen in European wood to the lighter, vanilla and more delicate style within the interaction from American casks.

See also Map Men (with Jay Foreman), who cover the Scottish-English border in an entertaining manner: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9DqZYsckBwI

Cool, didn’t know my watch is named after a mountain range. Going to read up about it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(mythology)

When you allow your gaze to traverse the whole of time then you can come up with some proper wankery.

As soon as you use the term Scottish with regards Permian ...

I'm out.

Kinda interesting in consideration of Plato's Myth of Atlantis. Atlas mountains, Atlantic Ocean... mud and all that. Maybe Atlantis was America or Cuba :P.

Except, they eroded away long before there were any people.

Atlantis is obviously Aztlán.

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