re:What is a river?...Is it gallons/liters per minute that flow? Some other criteria?
the old geography book defination of a river was a body of water that existed year round, that had a head (or starting place) and mouth that fed in to a sea, a gulf or ocean, or that joined with another body, that fed into a sea, gulf or ocean.
it is not required that a river be navigatable--but it must be a year round flow of water (so some 'rivers' in australia might not make the geography book cut) and it had to flow out to sea, gulf or ocean (so the genoese river in NY might not make the cut, since it empties into lake ontario.--but since the great lakes all feed each other, and feed into the StLawrence river.. (if you count that way, the st lawrence has got to be the 4th largest river in the world, (if not bigger!)
there are plenty of non-river rivers (NYC has 2!, the Harlem 'river' and the East 'river'- neither of which are rivers. i think creeks and streams, and so on, all feed rivers. i don't know why some get to be rivers in their own right.. (size? the ohio river is pretty big.. as is the missouri..these branches of the Mississippi get to be rivers.
and technically the conneticut river feeds into long island sound (not on the list (sea, gulf, ocean) but it other wise has all the characteristics..i think the head waters are in canada!and its deep and somewhat navigable (well up to the first falls)
i once drove cross country, and after the hudson, the only river that made an impression was the mississippi.. and we crossed it way up north in indiana!
Long island has some pretty poor excuses for rivers.. Wading River (the name says it all!) is not much of a river!
potamic
