Dear Neville Much evidence - primarily from George Dodwell - points to a major shift in the inclination of the earth - probably at the time of the flood. I suspect that the ecliptic was pretty well over the equator pre-flood. [The moon would then have an equatorial orbit, as most satellites to their planets.] The wind patterns would have been entirely different and I suspect seasons would be almost absent. Not only high water vapour content but probably at least double the mass of the atmosphere would change the "blanketing" effect and lead to a more constant temperature regime. Returning to the question of how the water returned to the source of the rivers. I wonder if they did. When the fountains of the great deep were broken up the water emerging presumably came from reservoirs underground much as in the Walter Brown model. Could the original rivers have been fed from a similar (shallower?) source? [Ps.24, 2 Peter 3:5]. I would imagine a small source - somewhat like the river in Ezekiel 47 rapidly becoming bigger away from the source. Perhaps fed along the way by nightly heavy dew dripping copiously from the trees. I have heard the idea of gravitational/centrifugal pumping being a possibility (particularly with a zero or small axis inclination) but remain somewhat skeptical about that. That particular theory has trilobites inhabiting the waterways used in returning water to the river sources. Blessings Philip Stott