I should have searched more thoroughly first and asked then. The
boundary treaty (an astonishingly short one, but then again this
boundary is not too complicated) can be read at
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1901/76.html . What
strikes me is that, apparently, south of the Fly, the boundary runs
along 141º1'47.9" east longitude, but north of it along 141º. I take
it this is exactly 141º. So the boundary consists not of one line
interrupted by the Fly, but of three sections.
This treaty doesn't take into account the denl boundary on New
Guinea. I suspect that the boundary continues to the north along that
same 141º line, but I'm not sure. I read somewhere that the
boundaries were already drawn around 1885, and that this 1895 treaty
is merely the confirmation of the boundaries.
So no error here, but probably the consideration that the Fly was
simply too big a river to cut it, as you said, Brendan.
By the way: the Fly was named after the ship of the discoverer of the
mouth of the river, one captain Blackwood (HMS Fly). I wonder what
the ship was named after...
Peter S.
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "Brendan Whyte" <brwhyte@h...> wrote:
> Victor Prescott's book should have the details. you can buy copies
from him.
> Email j.prescott@g... and ask for his "Map of Mainland
> Asia by Treaty" and "Boundaries of Asia and Southeats Asia".
> The latter has the PNG details.
> I suspect because it was a big river, it made sense to not leave
the inside
> of a large bend outside of PNG when it made more practical sense to
leave it
> to PNG
> who could access it best.
> I doubt it was ther Angle Inlet mistaker hypothesis. I will check
tomorrow.
>
> B
>
> >From: "Peter Smaardijk" <smaardijk@y...>
> >Reply-To: BoundaryPoint@y...
> >To: BoundaryPoint@y...
> >Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Fly river
> >Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 09:26:42 -0000
> >
> >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.
> >
>
>
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