Re: river basins

Nick Wedd writes:
Two drops of rain fall a few yards apart but on different sides of a
watershed.

(North American translation: they fall into the watersheds on different
sides of a divide.)

Each runs downhill until it reaches a stream. The aqueous
distance from one to the other is then calculated - what this means is,
the shortest possible distance measured along a path with the following
properties:
while in a stream or river, if the lowest point of the path has not
yet been reached, downstream, remaining in the stream or river; and
thereafter upstream, sill remaining in the stream or river.
while in a pond, lake or sea, by the shortest route within that pond,
lake or sea.

Where on the earth's surface do the two drops fall to maximise this
distance?

First, there are divides for which no such path exists -- the area on
one or both sides has only internal drainage, so one drop of water ends
up in the Caspian Sea or the Great Salt Lake while the other lands in
some other salt lake without outlet, or in the ocean. I assume we are
not intended to consider these.

Then I have two possibilities in mind. I think the part of the
continental divide in western Montana drains into the Columbia on
one side and the Mississippi on the other side. Somewhere around
there should be pretty good -- to get from the one to the other
river mouth you either have to go around Brazil and Cape Horn or
else around the Alaska Peninsula, northern Alaska, the Boothia
Peninsula, the Ungava Peninsula, eastern Labrador, and Florida.

The other possibility is somewhere in the Middle East. Presumably
the Isthmus of Suez gives drainage into the Red and Mediterranean
Seas (I assume the Suez Canal is not considered an acceptable route
for the path). I guess a place that drains into the Persian Gulf
instead of the Red Sea would be better yet -- is there a divide
between draining into the Gulf and the Mediterranean or Black Sea?

(I haven't attempted to validate or measure any of these paths on
a map, nor have I read any other responses in the thread, nor will
I do either for some hours at least. Gotta go now.)
--
Mark Brader "This is... a film... almost without explosions."
Toronto, msb@xxxxxxx --Mark Leeper

My text in this article is in the public domain.
.

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