Fig. 65.—Diagram showing the dissection of the upland shown in [Fig. 64] by tributary valleys.
Tributaries are tolerably sure to develop along each main valley. The heads of the tributaries work back across the uplands between the main valleys, dissecting them into secondary ridges ([Fig. 65]). Tributaries will develop on the tributaries, and these tertiary valleys dissect the secondary ridges into those of a lower order. This process of tributary development goes on until drainage lines of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and higher orders are formed ([Fig. 66]). Since the process of valley development under such circumstances is also the process of ridge dissection, a stage is presently reached where the ridges are cut into such short sections that they cease to be ridges, and become hills instead. Even then the processes of erosion do not stop, for the rain-water falling on the hills washes the loose material from their surfaces, and starts it on its seaward journey. Thus the “everlasting hills” themselves are lowered, and, given time enough, will be carried to the sea. Under these conditions, as under those already discussed, the final result of stream erosion is the reduction of the land to base-level. The base-leveled surface, as before, would not be absolutely flat. The area reduced by each stream will have a slight gradient down-stream, and from each lateral divide toward the axis of the valley. The crests of the scarcely perceptible elevations which remain will be in the position of the former divides, and these will be highest where most distant from the sea by the course which this part of the drainage took. Even the insensible divides between streams flowing in a common direction may disappear, for when valleys have reached their limits in depth, their streams do not cease to cut laterally. Meandering in their flat-bottomed valleys, they often reach and undercut the divides ([Pl. VII]), whether they be high or low. By lateral planation, therefore, the divides between streams may be entirely eaten away.
Fig. 66.—Diagram showing tributaries of several orders developed from the conditions sketched in the text.
It has now been seen that by whatever method erosion by running water proceeds, whether there be many valleys, or few or none, the final result of subaërial erosion must be the production of a base-level. It has also been seen that the base-level is first developed at the lower ends of the main streams, and that it extends itself systematically up the main valleys and up all tributaries. The time involved in the reduction of a land area to base-level is a cycle of erosion.
It will have been evident from the preceding pages that the terms “grade,” “graded plain,” and “base-level” and “base-leveled plain,” are somewhat variously, and therefore somewhat confusingly, used. “Grade is a condition of essential balance between corrasion and deposition.”[29] A graded valley is one in which deposition and corrasion are, in the vertical sense, balanced. Its angle of slope is most variable, and is dependent on the capacity of the stream for work, and on the work it has to do. A weak river must have a higher gradient than a strong one; a stream with much sediment must have a higher gradient than one with little, and a stream with a load of coarse material must have a higher gradient than one with a load of fine. Thus the graded valley of the lower Mississippi has an inappreciable angle of slope, but the graded valleys of many of its tributaries have slopes of hundreds of feet per mile. Since both the size of the stream and the amount and coarseness of its load at a given place vary from time to time, it is clear that the inclination of a graded valley must vary also, and further, that it must be in process of continual readjustment. With the changing conditions of advancing years the slope of a graded valley normally decreases. The same principles apply to graded surfaces outside of valleys.
In the continual readjustment of grades incident to a river’s normal history the land is brought nearer and nearer to sea-level without ceasing to be at grade. When the inclination of a graded surface becomes so low that it is sensibly flat, the surface may be said to be at base-level, although this does not mean that the surface can never be degraded further. If the term be used in this way, it is clear that there is no sharp line of distinction between a graded surface and a base-leveled surface, and as the terms are now commonly applied no such distinction exists.
If the term base-level were made synonymous with sea-level, as has been proposed,[30] the term might as well be discarded, for sea-level could always be used in its stead. Furthermore, streams often erode below sea-level. The bottom of the channel of the Mississippi is below sea-level for some 400 miles above its debouchure, and locally (Fort Jackson) it is nearly 250 feet below. This deep channel is the result of the erosive activity of the stream, not of subsidence. Again, the sea-level is itself inconstant. The extent of its changes cannot now be measured, but they have probably been more considerable in the course of geological history than has been commonly recognized. It is true that they take place slowly, as far as known, but it is also true that the duration of an erosion cycle is sufficiently long for even very slow changes to reach great magnitude. The sea-level, therefore, can hardly be accepted as the absolute base-level, unless (1) the absolute base-level is a variable, and unless (2) the absolute base-level be a surface below which rivers may cut to the extent of at least 250 feet.
The ocean may be looked upon as a barrier which in a general way limits the down-cutting of running water; for only very large streams cut much below its level. Other barriers, such as lakes, and the outcrops of hard rock in a stream’s bed, have a comparable, though more temporary, effect on the development of valley plains above. Plains thus developed have been called temporary base-levels. They differ from other graded plains in being controlled primarily by a barrier below, rather than by conditions which exist above.
Since river valleys have a beginning and pass through various stages of development before the country they drain is base-leveled, it is important to recognize their various stages of advancement. Nor is this difficult. An old valley and a young one have different characteristics, and the one would no more be mistaken for the other by those who have learned to interpret them, than the face of an aged man would be mistaken for that of a child.