The Elements of Geology. William Harmon Norton
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Waterfalls and rapids. Before the bed of a stream is reduced to grade it may be broken by abrupt descents which give rise to waterfalls and rapids. Such breaks in a river’s bed may belong to the initial surface over which it began its course; still more commonly are they developed in the rock mass through which it is cutting its valley. Thus, wherever a stream leaves harder rocks to flow over softer ones the latter are quickly worn below the level of the former, and a sharp change in slope, with a waterfall or rapid, results (Fig. 55).
At time of flood young tributaries with steeper courses than that of the trunk stream may bring down stones and finer waste, which the gentler current cannot move along, and throw them as a dam across its way. The rapids thus formed are also ephemeral, for as the gradient of the tributaries is lowered the main stream becomes able to handle the smaller and finer load which they discharge.
A rare class of falls is produced where the minor tributaries of a young river are not able to keep pace with their master stream in the erosion of their beds because of their smaller volume, and thus join it by plunging over the side of its gorge. But as the river approaches grade and slackens its down cutting, the tributaries sooner or later overtake it, and effacing their falls, unite with it on a level.
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Fig. 58. Maturely Dissected Plateau near Charleston, West Virginia
Compare the number of streams in any given number of square miles with the number on an area of the same size in the Red River Valley (Fig. 44). What is the shape of the ridges? Are their summits broad or narrow? Are their crests even or broken by knobs and cols (the depressions on the crest line)? If the latter, how deeply have the cols been worn beneath the summits of the knobs?
Waterfalls and rapids of all kinds are evanescent features of a river’s youth. Like lakes they are soon destroyed, and if any long time had already elapsed since their formation they would have been obliterated already.
Local baselevels. That balanced condition called grade, where a river neither degrades its bed by erosion nor aggrades it by deposition, is first attained along reaches of soft rocks, ungraded outcrops of hard rocks remaining as barriers which give rise to rapids or falls. Until these barriers are worn away they constitute local baselevels, below which level the stream, up valley from them, cannot cut. They are eroded to grade one after another, beginning with the least strong, or the one nearest the mouth of the stream. In a similar way the surface of a lake in a river’s course constitutes for all inflowing streams a local baselevel, which disappears when the basin is filled or drained.
Fig. 59. A Maturity Dissected Region of Slight Relief, Iowa
Mature And Old Rivers
Maturity is the stage of a river’s complete development and most effective work. The river system now has well under way its great task of wearing down the land mass which it drains and carrying it particle by particle to the sea. The relief of the land is now at its greatest; for the main channels have been sunk to grade, while the divides remain but little worn below their initial altitudes. Ground water now stands low. The run-off washes directly to the streams, with the least delay and loss by evaporation in ponds and marches; the discharge of the river is therefore at its height. The entire region is dissected by stream ways. The area of valley slopes is now largest and sheds to the streams a heavier load of waste than ever before. At maturity the river system is doing its greatest amount of work both in erosion and in the carriage of water and of waste to the sea.
Fig. 60. Successive Stages, A, B, C, and D, in Valley-Widening by Planation
Describe valley A. What changes have taken place in B, C, and D? Do the river bends remain stationary or move up or down valley? With what effect on the projecting spurs of the valley sides? Draw diagrams showing a still later stage than D
Lateral erosion. On reaching grade a river ceases to scour its bed, and it does not again begin to do so until some change in load or volume enables it to find grade at a lower level. On the other hand, a stream erodes its banks at all stages in its history, and with graded rivers this process, called lateral erosion, or planation, is specially important. The current of a stream follows the outer side of all curves or bends in the channel, and on this side it excavates its bed the deepest and continually wears and saps its banks. On the inner side deposition takes place in the more shallow and slower-moving water. The inner bank of bends is thus built out while the outer bank is worn away. By swinging its curves against the valley sides a graded river continually cuts a wider and wider floor. The V-valley of youth is thus changed by planation to a flat-floored valley with flaring sides which gradually become subdued by the weather to gentle slopes. While widening their valleys streams maintain a constant width of channel, so that a wide-floored valley does not signify that it ever was occupied by a river of equal width.
The gradient. The gradients of graded rivers differ widely. A large river with a light load reaches grade on a faint slope, while a smaller stream heavily burdened with waste requires a steep slope to give it velocity sufficient to move the load.
The Platte, a graded river of Nebraska with its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains, is enfeebled by the semi-arid climate of the Great Plains and surcharged with the waste brought down both by its branches in the mountains and by those whose tracks lie over the soft rocks of the plains. It is compelled to maintain a gradient of eight feet to the mile in western Nebraska. The Ohio reaches grade with a slope of less than four inches to the mile from Cincinnati to its mouth, and the powerful Mississippi washes along its load with a fall of but three inches per mile from Cairo to the Gulf.
Other things being equal, which of graded streams will have the steeper gradient, a trunk stream or its tributaries? a stream supplied with gravel or one with silt?
Other factors remaining the same, what changes would occur if the Platte should increase in volume? What changes would occur if the load should be increased in amount or in coarseness?
Fig. 61. Successive Cross Sections of a Region as it advances from Infancy a, to Old Age e
The old age of rivers. As rivers pass their prime,