mmilner said:
paul said:
Is it not simply surveyed length? Add up all survey legs and that gives you the length.
Yes, absolutely. An oxbow is a separate passage to the main stream passage. How short should a 'dead end' passage be before it becomes 'poxy' in your opinion? There are very few 'dead end' passages in natural caves, (only mines), the passages normally either get too small to negotiate or end in boulder chokes. (Which might be passed by future digging anyway.)
Well, 'too small to negotiate' equates to 'dead end' in my book. Ok, a passage might be passed in future, but if it's only passable by an underfed rat
now, is it right to add its length to the cave total ?
Likewise, imagine the not uncommon situation where a passage is split in two by some obstruction. Does the fact that you can go round either side mean you can count that section of passage twice ? If the surveyor can be bothered to record both parts separately, then apparently you can - although it doesn't make the passage any longer when you actually negotiate it.
I just wonder what statements like 'Easegill has 30km of passage' (or whatever the current figure is) actually mean ?
TBE's suggestion of 'longest traversible route' seems better, but as Alex says in a complex system, that would be tricky to calculate. Perhaps 'longest sensible traversible route' ? Oh, forget it....