Page 14 RAIN Jan./Feb. 1984 with water, for it was the detailed depiction of the land masses that was the most tedious process. The first of the land forms that I projected onto the globe was the continent of Australia. We North Americans are particularly ignorant of this lonely continent in the southern hemisphere. It seemed appropriate, therefore, to give it the distinction of appearing first on the globe. This smallest of continents has a magnificent diversity of terrain and vegetation. A visibly vast and barren desert covers the western portion of Australia. The Great Dividing Range stretches across the east and drops off into the forests of the eastern shore. Even at this scale, one can distinguish the tropical areas from the temperate zones. In the south, the long and massive Murray River flows into the Tasmanian Sea. The island of Tasmania protrudes into that sea and is whipped by the trade winds as they circumnavigate the southern hemisphere. From Australia I worked my way north, forming the many islands of Indonesia and the Philippines. Though thick with jungle, this is one of the most densely populated areas of the world. Yet at this scale the presence of humans is scarcely evident. Next I arrived in southeast Asia, a war-torn area where we have watched the blood flow and political powers shift. On this globe, however, we see that the existing vegetation is far more abundant than the areas of devastation and the borders are invisible. Of particular fascination are the major rivers of Asia, all of which originate from the central portion of the Tibetan Plateau. All share common headwaters, yet complete their various journies in very distant lands. None of them flows west, however, for they are obstructed by the Kunlun Mountains. But on the other side of these mountains, in the Karakumy Desert, new rivers emerge that perform equally unexpectedly. Some of these many rivers flow hundreds of miles and then abruptly end. ''At a scale of one to eight million, one of the only visible effects of humankind on the planet is the creation and destruction of large bodies of water." Their waters evaporate as they traverse the desert. Though we assume that all rivers must eventually empty their waters into the sea, these cannot. Further west, new rivers form that flow toward the Caspian Sea, the largest lake in the world. It is a salt-lake from which no water escapes. The level of the Caspian Sea has been steadily dropping in recent years as the Soviet Union diverts the water flowing into it for industrial purposes. At a scale of one to eight-million, one of the only effects of humankind on the planet that we can see is the creation and destruction of large bodies of water, such as this one. Many times during the creation of the globe I would step back to observe this emerging form. I wopld spin the globe slightly, my fingers skipping across the Iranian Plateau, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Peninsula. After I completed the continent of Africa I was particularly struck by the glorious contrast between the dry and arid desert in the north and the deep shades of the rain forest in the central portions of the continent. One of the world maps I was working with showed elevation by coloring the lowlands green and the highlands brown. This was perhaps a logical method, but in Africa the desert is close to sea level, thus colored green on this map, and the rain forests, which are at a much higher altitude, were colored brown. It was typical of the way standard maps can actually distort our understanding of the planet. With Africa complete, I stepped forward again, with brush in hand, and crossed the Mediterranean to form Europe. After weeks of tedious detailing, I finally was confronted with my Eurocentric prejudice. As I reached the locale of my own culture, I was, of course, more familiar with the land form. I was becoming considerably more concerned about accuracy. Such prejudice was perhaps inexcusable, but it was equally unavoidable. As
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