57fe2097   
   XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: jon.lennart.beck.its.my.name@mail.its.in.danmark   
      
   "Jerry Friedman"  skrev i meddelelsen   
   news:831e03b1-6726-46e6-9708-94d3f148e840@g31g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...   
      
   > On a totally unrelated subject--there was some discussion here in 1999   
   > about the idea that everything east of the Misty Mountains should be   
   > in their rain shadow and thus very arid (which I'm inclined to agree   
   > with).  Some people suggested that Tolkien simply didn't know much   
   > about weather.  However, there's this sentence in "Flight to the   
   > Ford":   
      
   > "The wind began to blow steadily out of the West and pour the water of   
   > the distant seas on the dark heads of the hills in fine drenching   
   > rain."   
      
   > So he may well have known that rain ultimately comes from big bodies   
   > of water and that it falls on the heights, which is why the leeward   
   > sides of mountains are dry.  I almost wonder whether this was a sort   
   > of apology for having a wet climate east of the Misty Mountains, which   
   > he was stuck with from /The Hobbit/.   
      
   > I hope some of this is interesting.   
      
      The climate east of a north-south-going mountain range in temperate   
   latitudes is indeed drier than on the western side.  It does not follow that   
   it is arid.  Most of North America east of the Rockies has rain, enough to   
   build the Mississippi river.  Much rain falls on the western slopes, and   
   less on the high eastern slopes - but not no rain.  Some will fall east of   
   the divide, before the air begins to descend again and warm adiabatically.   
   Residents of the US Midwest should be able to tell how much of their rain   
   comes from the west and how much from the other directions, such as from the   
   Gulf in the South.  Though of course the Mississippi Basin is not bounded in   
   the South by another mountain range, whereas the Vale of Anduin has the   
   White Mountains to block much of the moist air from the Bay of Belfalas.   
      In the fiction, Anduin has its sources in the mountains of the North.   
   The valley that it flows through has mountains on one side, whence   
   tributaries large enough to be marked on the map, and a moderate highland on   
   the other, where a great forest grows.  It does not seem to me that Anduin   
   is a very great river that far north, though certainly greater than a mere   
   stream.  It would seem that until the Gap of Rohan, most of the water of   
   Anduin comes from the Misty Mountains.  Further east you have two main   
   rivers, Celduin and Carnen, wich both have their sources in mountains, and   
   empty into the inland sea of Rhûn - they are not large enough to make a lake   
   that rises enough to spill into the Sea.  The marking in the sea of Rhûn on   
   the map, looking a bit like sand, seems to indicate a shallow area that may   
   be dry when the lake is low.   
      So while Wilderland in the fiction is a good deal wetter than arid, it   
   does seem to me that the Westlands are wetter still, with no less than three   
   major rivers - four if you count Isen which has its source east of a   
   southern spur of the Misties but has its main tributary, Adorn, flowing from   
   the western spur of the White Mountains.   
      
   Rabe.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)