Re: C-SAT

[Margaret Mary Mazzolini <304130@bud.cc.swin.edu.au>]

As I understand it, rivers do run uphill - long ones heading towards the 
equator, at least. Isn't it the Mississipi (pardon the Aussie spelling if 
that's wrong!) which meets the ocean at a higher elevation to much of its 
length?  The story I've been told is that the equatorial bulge of the 
earth is matched by the gravitational equipotentials.
Margaret Mazzolini

On Tue, 15 Oct 1996, Jim Green wrote:

> > > But why, I wonder, is it a "hump"?  If the local gravitational constant
> > > there is greater, why isn't there a "depression"?
> >
> > Because the extra gravity there attracts more than its normal share of the
> > available fluid water.
>
> Ah, but why is this so??  Another hand-waving argument might be that there
> is a grreater gravitational force "down" therefore there will be a depresion
> there.  An appeal to potentials just adds another layer to the question.
>
> If ocean water runs "up hill", why don't rivers?