The amount of water upon this earth is unimaginable, the places for viewing the indescribable waterway displays innumerable, the time we have to enjoy these marvels of creation, about seventy or eighty years, much too short for what God has provided.

Verily, we need the paradise to truly enjoy this creation God has so lovingly provided.

In topography, a water divide, also known as a drainage divide or watershed, is where there is an elevated height of land that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a single range of hills or mountains, known as a dividing range. On flat terrain, especially where the ground is marshy, the divide may be harder to discern.

Major divides separating rivers that drain to different seas or oceans are called continental divides. A triple divide is a point, often a summit, where three drainage basins meet.

A basin divide is a valley which has a ridge that completely surround it and separates it from other watersheds. Often, these basin divides are endorheic watersheds which prevents all water in that basin from flowing to any sea or ocean.

The North American Continental divide has three basin divides, one of which is referred to as the Great Divide Basin found in the Wyoming Basin ecoregion, and which of the three is actually the smallest basin divide. A second one is found in the Madrean Archipelago in New Mexico near the border of Arizona. The third basin divide is in the Chihuahuan Desert area of the Mexican Plateau.

Lakes abound in North America, many of which were produced by glacial effects and now which have had a profound effect on the continental drainage pattern, widening the passes through the several Cordilleras and by forming big lakes in ice-deepened basins. The areas of the Great Lakes have a fascinating history, as Lakes Superior and Huron were vast synclinal depressions even in Precambrian times.

The glaciers preferentially flowed down into the valleys and synclines, greatly deepened them into ice-cut basins, and where, as the ice melted away, the water subsequently gathered to fill the Great Lakes. For a period of time, the front line of the glacier ice was blocking the St. Lawrence outlet, and causing the ice melt from the glaciers to be drained southward into the Mississippi-Ohio, the Susquehanna, and the Mohawk-Hudson river valleys. Finally, when the glaciers retreated from blocking the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the melting ice water then flowed into the now exposed lower outlet into the St. Lawrence River, decreasing the level of the Great Lakes and leaving beaches around them that stand out as raised beaches, and/or strandlines indicating the high water marks.

The continental land mass, previously depressed under the enormous weight of the massive glacier ice, did then upon the gradual melting of that ice, begin to rise, causing the old lake beaches to rise above the subsequently diminishing bodies of water. In a similar way the strandlines along the Gulf of St. Lawrence began to rise, those strandlines that were once under the very large bodies of water, which include the glacial lakes: Champlain, Winnipeg, Agassiz, Athabasca, all of which are relics of that previous deeper and larger glacial lakes system.

Farther south, in the Great Basin area of Utah and Nevada, during the Pleistocene epoch, the climate went through a pluvial period, which coincided with the end of the ice age in the north. This period of increased rainfall, gave rise to the enormous Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville. The Great Salt Lake is a relic of Lake Bonneville, the ancient strandlines of which are up to 1,000 feet (300 metres) above the present shoreline. Similarly, present-day Lake Chapala in Mexico represents only a small portion of the large body of water that accumulated on the Mexican Plateau and whose level fluctuated during several pluvial periods.

The rivers of North America are composed of a great variety. In the extreme north are the north flowing rivers, including: Mackenzie, Nelson, Red River of the North and the Yukon, all of which freeze over in the winter. Too, more often than not, the mouth remains frozen longer causing flooding in the upper reaches of these rivers.

The mid-continent Mississippi system is often swollen in spring from ice melt from the upper river areas. The southwestern parts has winter rains which often causes some flooding but then the rivers diminish exponentially in the summer. The Pacific northwest areas normally have rain in all four seasons, often heaviest in winter.

The southern regions have a more tropical climate and these rivers have a regular flow, usually full throughout the entire year. The only exception with this area are in areas of rain shadow areas on the leeward mountain zones.