Rivers
The East Alligator River is approximately 160 km long. After rising in the northern part of the Arnhem Land Plateau, it flows with tributary streams towards the north-west through magnificent canyons towards the Van Diemen Gulf which it meets at Point Farewell.
The South Alligator River is also about 160 km long. It rises north of Mount Stow also on the Arnhem Land plateau. It flows north-westerly in a valley containing a number of disused uranium mines developed between 1955 and 1965. It also finishes in the Van Diemen Gulf of the Timor Sea.
The West Alligator River rises in the lowlands and is 80 km long. The Wildman River also flows in the region. The river system has a number of spectacular waterfalls including the Jim Jim Falls on Jim Jim Creek and the Twin Falls on Twin Falls Creek.
The rivers have created the alluvial plains, including the mangrove swamps, in the past 20,000 years.
Read more about this topic: Alligator Rivers
Famous quotes containing the word rivers:
“As for evildoers, for them awaits a painful chastisement;
but for those who believe, and do deeds
of righteousness, they shall be admitted
to gardens underneath which rivers flow,
therein dwelling forever,
by the leave of their Lord, their greeting
therein: “Peace!””
—Qur’An. Abraham 14:28 (ed. Arthur J. Arberry, 1955)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)