acroorca2002 wrote:
"ok you win"

That isn't the point. I did miss this remark about the split, then
when you mentioned it thought about it, and although I may of course
be wrong, I don't think this rule, if it ever existed, does exist
nowadays.

"it splits only for a marriage & not for a wedding
but i still enjoyed this & all the other data presented by bill
firsthand
as well as the other fresh findings posted initially by quadernet
& i think these & all such spontaneous offerings should be honored
& not discouraged because we are just too knowledgeable already"

I don't think I am discouraging anyone here, just as I don't think
that we are too knowledgeable (if such a thing exists... - "you know
too much" is a phrase normally used in different contexts...:-)).
There are still things that puzzle me about the island. For example,
we had it established that the island is a condominium, and that the
Bidasoa is a boundary river between marker no. 1 and the mouth of the
river (where it meets the second condominium), i.e. with a normal
thalweg boundary. But I have never seen the implicit outcome of this
situation, that is, that the island is a condominial enclave in
either French or Spanish internal water, mentioned or depicted
anywhere. And an odd situation like this would merit such a
mentioning somewhere, I think. Descheemaeker's hand-drawn map, on the
other hand, suggests that the Thalweg boundary is interrupted by the
island, and that there is a small bit of condominial water around the
island (up to the Thalwegs of the two river branches) as well. But as
this situation isn't mentioned anywhere in texts that I've read
either, the first situation (the island being a dry condominium
surrounded by French or Spanish - I'd go for Spanish - internal
waters) is the more probable one.

Another possibility would be that just before and after the island,
the border would leave the Thalweg and head for the extremities of
the island. This would account for the highly ceremonial character of
the island, which is sometimes considered to be a boundary marker in
it's entirety. But this is another wild guess without any back-up in
writing (that I know of) at all.

Peter S.