Subject: Fly river
Date: May 01, 2001 @ 09:26
Author: Peter Smaardijk ("Peter Smaardijk" <smaardijk@...>)
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Thinking about the subject of straight borders, something that I have
wondered about for a long time came up again. The island of New
Guinea is divided by a pretty straight line. Almost straight, because
there is the Fly river that forms the boundary between Indonesia and
Papua New Guinea for some distance. In a book about our own little
Dutch Siberia (nothing to boast about actually), the penal colony for
political prisoners at the Upper Digoel river in the 'thirties, I
read that most prisoners that fled tried to reach the Fly (no, that's
probably NOT why that river is called that way), being the closest
borderline near the camp.

Does anyone know why the Fly was included in the boundary? Straight
lines like the New Guinean one normally don't bother about rivers. I
suspect an error like the N.W. Angle one...

Peter S.