Opening paragraphs...................

If you leave Savannah on the coast and travel on the only U. S. highway that goes almost straight westward across the state of Georgia, you will cross the Ogeechee, Oconee, and Ocmulgee rivers, all of which flow to the south and east and empty into the Atlantic Ocean.  After about three hours you'll cross the Flint River, the first stream the runs in a different direction, and eventually its often muddy waters empty into the Gulf of Mexico.  Unlike the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains, our "divide" is not noticeable, because the land was all part of the relatively flat bottom of the sea in the not-too-distant geological past.  It is still rich and productive, thanks to the early ocean sediments and the nutrients it has accumulated from plants and animals since that time.
-Jimmy Carter,  An Hour Before Daylight:  Memories of a Rural Boyhood