The Upper Mississippi

The river before the Missouri joins it

On the Mississippi plate the upper river is a single piece. Here it is opened up: the Minnesota coming in from the prairie to the west, the St Croix from the north woods, the Wisconsin, the Cedar and the Des Moines running down to the main stem, which is carved into the surface as a channel. It is mostly flat country the ice sheets left behind, so the relief is gentle, and the rivers do most of the work of giving the plate its shape.

What a child works out

• One piece of a big basin is a whole basin of its own when you look closer.
• Flat land still has divides — the water knows which way to go even where the eye can't tell.
• The main stem is the spine; every piece leans towards it.

The plate

Pieces

21 pieces

9 named; the rest are sub-basins the source data leaves unnamed.

Plate

176 × 250 mm

B5 — the size of a school exercise book.

Scale

1 mm ≈ 4.7 km

How much ground one millimetre of plate covers.

Vertical exaggeration

× 34.94

Height is stretched by this factor so the relief is readable at desk size.

Thickness

8.8 mm

Smallest piece

132 mm²

Nothing is cut smaller than a child can pick up.

Fit

0.35 mm clearance

Printed in place, so every piece seats first time without sanding.

Material

PLA, printed in Switzerland

Every named piece

• Cedar
• Des Moines
• Des Moines 2
• Minnesota
• Minnesota 2
• St Croix
• St Croix 2
• Wisconsin
• Wisconsin 2