Outlines of the Earth's History: A Popular Study in Physiography

by Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

The tendency of a newly formed river is to cut a more or less distinct cañon. As the basin becomes ancient, this element of the gorge tends to disappear, the reason for this being that, while the river bed is high above the sea, the current is swift and the down-cutting rapid, while the slow subsidence of the country on either side—a process which goes on at a uniform rate—causes the surface of that region to be left behind in the race for the sea level. As the stream bed comes nearer the sea level its rate of descent is diminished, and so the outlying country gradually overtakes it.

In regions where the winters are very cold the effect of ice on the development of the stream beds both in the torrent and river sections of the valley is important. This work is accomplished in several diverse ways. In the first place, where the stream is clear and the current does not flow too swiftly, the stones on the bottom radiate their heat through the water, and thus form ice on their surfaces, which may attain considerable thickness. As ice is considerably lighter than water, the effect is often to lift up the stones of the bed if they be not too large; when thus detached from the bottom, they are easily floated down stream until the ice melts away. The ice which forms on the surface of the water likewise imprisons the pebbles along the banks, and during the subsequent thaw may carry them hundreds of miles toward the sea. It seems likely, from certain observations made by the writer, that considerable stones may thus be carried from the Alleghany River to the main Mississippi.

Perhaps the most important effect of ice on river channels is accomplished when in a time of flood the ice field which covered the stream, perhaps to the depth of some feet, is broken up into vast floes, which drift downward with the current. When, as on the Ohio, these fields sometimes have the area of several hundred acres, they often collide with the shores, especially where the stream makes a sharp bend. Urged by their momentum, these ice floes pack into the semblance of a dam, which may have a thickness of twenty, thirty, or even fifty feet. Beginning on the shore, where the collision takes place, the dam may swiftly develop clear across the stream, so that in a few minutes the way of the waters is completely blocked. The on-coming ice shoots up upon the accumulation, increases its height, and extends it up stream, so that in an hour the mass completely bars the current. The waters then heap up until they break their way over the obstacle, washing its top away, until the whole is light enough to be forced down the stream, where, by the friction it encounters on the bottom and sides of the channel, it is broken to pieces. It is easy to see that such moving dams of ice may sweep the bed of a river as with a great broom.

Sometimes where the gorges do not form a stationary dam large cakes of ice become turned on edge and pack together so that they roll down the stream like great wheels, grinding the bed rock as they go.

In high northern countries, as in Siberia, the rivers, even the deepest, often become so far frozen that their channels are entirely obstructed. Where, as in the case of these Siberian rivers, the flow is from south to north, it often happens that the spring thaw sets in before the more northern beds of the main stream are released from their bondage of frost. In this case the inundations have to find new paths on either side of the obstructed way. The result is a type of valleys characterized by very irregular and changeable stream beds, the rivers having no chance to organize themselves into the shapely curves which they ordinarily follow.

The supply which finds its way to a river is composed, as has been already incidentally noted, in part of the water which courses underground for a greater or less distance before it emerges to the surface, and in part of that which moves directly over the ground. These two shares of water have somewhat different histories. On the share of these two depends the stability of the flow. Where, as in New England and other glaciated countries, the surface of the earth is covered with a thick layer of sand and gravel, which, except when frozen, readily admits the water; the rainfall is to a very great extent absorbed by the earth, and only yielded slowly to the streams. In these cases floods are rare and of no great destructive power. Again, where also the river basin is covered by a dense mantle of forests, the ground beneath which is coated, as is the case in primeval woods, with a layer of decomposing vegetation a foot or more in depth, this spongy mass retains the water even more effectively than the open-textured glacial deposits above referred to. When the woods, however, are removed from such an area, the rain may descend to the streams almost as speedily as it finds its way to the gutters from the house roofs. It thus comes about that all regions, when reduced to tillage, and where the rainfall is enough to maintain a good agriculture, are, except when they have a coating of glacial waste, exceedingly liable to destructive inundations.

Unhappily, the risk of river floods is peculiarly great in all the regions of the United States lying much to the east of the Rocky Mountains, except in the basin of the Great Lakes and in the district of New England, where the prevalence of glacial sands and gravels affords the protection which we have noted. Throughout this region the rainfall is heavy, and the larger part of it is apt to come after the ground has become deeply snow-covered. The result is a succession of devastating floods which already are very damaging to the works of man, and promise to become more destructive as time goes on. More than in any other country, we need the protection which forests can give us against these disastrous outgoings of our streams.

Lakes.

In considering the journey of water from the hilltops to the sea, we should take some account of those pauses which it makes on its way when for a time it falls into the basin of a lake. These arrests in the downward motion of water, which we term lakes, are exceedingly numerous; their proper discussion would, indeed, require a considerable volume. We shall here note only the more important of their features, those which are of interest to the general student.

The first and most noteworthy difference in lakes is that which separates the group of dead seas from the living basins of fresh water. When a stream attains a place where its waters have to expand into the lakelike form, the current moves in a slow manner, and the broad surface exposed to the air permits a large amount of evaporation. If the basin be large in proportion to the amount of the incurrent water, this evaporation may exceed the supply, and produce a sea with no outlet, such as we find in the Dead Sea of Judea, in that at Salt Lake, Utah, and in a host of other less important basins. If the rate of evaporation be yet greater in proportion to the flow, the lake may altogether dry away, and the river be evaporated before it attains the basin where it might accumulate. In that case the river is said to sink, but, in place of sinking into the earth, its waters really rise into the air. Many such sinks occur in the central portion of the Rocky Mountain district. It is important to note that the process of evaporation we are describing takes place in the case of all lakes, though only here and there is the air so dry that the evaporation prevents the basin from overflowing at the lowest point on its rim, forming a river which goes thence to the sea. Even in the case of the Great Lakes of North America a considerable part of the water which flows into them does not go to the St. Lawrence and thence to the sea. As long as the lake finds an outlet to the sea its waters contain but little more dissolved mineral matter than that we find in the rivers. But because all water which has been in contact with the earth has some dissolved mineral substances, while that which goes away by evaporation is pure water, a lake without an outlet gradually becomes so charged with these materials that it can hold no more in solution, but proceeds to lay them down in deposits of that compound substance which from its principal ingredient we name salt. The water of dead seas, because of the additional weight of the substances which it holds, is extraordinarily buoyant. The swimmer notes a difference in this regard in the waters of rivers and fresh-water lakes and those of the sea, due to this same cause. But in those of dead seas, saturated with saline materials, the human body can not sink as it does in the ordinary conditions of immersion. It is easy to understand how the salt deposits which are mined in many parts of the world have generally, if not in all cases, been formed in such dead seas.[5]