the “capture” and diversion of the water of one river by another, leading to a change of watershed.[1] The minor tributaries become more numerous and more constant, until the system of torrents has impressed its own individuality on the mountain side. As the river leaves the mountain, ever growing by the accession of tributaries, it ceases, save in flood time, to be a formidable instrument of destruction; the gentler slope of the land surface gives to it only power sufficient to transport small stones, gravel, sand and ultimately mud. Its valley banks are cut back by the erosion of minor tributaries, or by rain-wash if the climate be moist, or left steep and sharp while the river deepens its bed if the climate be arid. The outline of the curve of a valley’s sides ultimately depends on the angle of repose of the detritus which covers them, if there has been no subsequent change, such as the passage of a glacier along the valley, which tends to destroy the regularity of the cross-section. The slope of the river bed diminishes until the plain compels the river to move slowly, swinging in meanders proportioned to its size, and gradually, controlled by the flattening land, ceasing to transport material, but raising its banks and silting up its bed by the dropped sediment, until, split up and shoaled, its distributaries struggle across its delta to the sea. This is the typical river of which there are infinite varieties, yet every variety would, if time were given, and the land remained unchanged in level relatively to the sea, ultimately approach to the type.Adjustment of rivers to land. Movements of the land either of subsidence or elevation, changes in the land by the action of erosion in cutting back an escarpment or cutting through a col, changes in climate by affecting the rainfall and the volume of water, all tend to throw the river valley out of harmony with the actual condition of its stream. There is nothing more striking in geography than the perfection of the adjustment of a great river system to its valleys when the land has remained stable for a very lengthened period. Before full adjustment has been attained the river bed may be broken in places by waterfalls or interrupted by lakes; after adjustment the bed assumes a permanent outline, the slope diminishing more and more gradually, without a break in its symmetrical descent. Excellent examples of the indecisive drainage of a new land surface, on which the river system has not had time to impress itself, are to be seen in northern Canada and in Finland, where rivers are separated by scarcely perceptible divides, and the numerous lakes frequently belong to more than one river system.
The action of rivers on the land is so important that it has been made the basis of a system of physical geography by Professor W. M. Davis, who classifies land surfaces in terms of the three factors—structure, process and time.[2] Of these time, during which the process is acting on theThe geographical cycle. structure, is the most important. A land may thus be characterized by its position in the “geographical cycle”, or cycle of erosion, as young, mature or old, the last term being reached when the base-level of erosion is attained, and the land, however varied its relief may have been in youth or maturity, is reduced to a nearly uniform surface or peneplain. By a re-elevation of a peneplain the rivers of an old land surface may be restored to youthful activity, and resume their shaping action, deepening the old valleys and initiating new ones, starting afresh the whole course of the geographical cycle. It is, however, not the action of the running water on the land, but the function exercised by the land on the running water, that is considered here to be the special province of geography. At every stage of the geographical cycle the land forms, as they exist at that stage, are concerned in guiding the condensation and flow of water in certain definite ways. Thus, for example, in a mountain range at right angles to a prevailing sea-wind, it is the land forms which determine that one side of the range shall be richly watered and deeply dissected by a complete system of valleys, while the other side is dry, indefinite in its valley systems, and sends none of its scanty drainage to the sea. The action of rain, ice and rivers conspires with the movement of land waste to strip the layer of soil from steep slopes as rapidly as it forms, and to cause it to accumulate on the flat valley bottoms, on the graceful flattened cones of alluvial fans at the outlet of the gorges of tributaries, or in the smoothly-spread surface of alluvial plains.
The whole question of the régime of rivers and lakes is sometimes treated under the name hydrography, a name used by some writers in the sense of marine surveying, and by others as synonymous with oceanography. For the study of rivers alone the name potamology[3] has been suggested by Penck, and the subject being of much practical importance has received a good deal of attention.[4]
The study of lakes has also been specialized under the name of limnology (see Lake).[5] The existence of lakes in hollows of the land depends upon the balance between precipitation and evaporation. A stream flowing into a hollow will tend to fill it up, and the water will begin to escape as soon as its level rises highLakes and internal drainage. enough to reach the lowest part of the rim. In the case of a large hollow in a very dry climate the rate of evaporation may be sufficient to prevent the water from ever rising to the lip, so that there is no outflow to the sea, and a basin of internal drainage is the result. This is the case, for instance, in the Caspian sea, the Aral and Balkhash lakes, the Tarim basin, the Sahara, inner Australia, the great basin of the United States and the Titicaca basin. These basins of internal drainage are calculated to amount to 22% of the land surface. The percentages of the land surface draining to the different oceans are approximately—Atlantic, 34.3%; Arctic sea, 16.5%; Pacific, 14.4%; Indian Ocean, 12.8%.[6]
The parts of a river system have not been so clearly defined as is desirable, hence the exaggerated importance popularly attached to “the source” of a river. A well-developed river system has in fact many equally important and widely-separated sources, the most distant from the mouth, the highest,Terminology of river systems. or even that of largest initial volume not being necessarily of greater geographical interest than the rest. The whole of the land which directs drainage towards one river is known as its basin, catchment area or drainage area—sometimes, by an incorrect expression, as its valley or even its watershed. The boundary line between one drainage area and others is rightly termed the watershed, but on account of the ambiguity which has been tolerated it is better to call it water-parting or, as in America, divide. The only other important term which requires to be noted here is talweg, a word introduced from the German into French and English, and meaning the deepest line along the valley, which is necessarily occupied by a stream unless the valley is dry.
The functions of land forms extend beyond the control of the circulation of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the water which is continually being interchanged between them; they are exercised with increased effect in the higher departments of biogeography and anthropogeography.
The sum of the organic life on the globe is termed by some geographers the biosphere, and it has been estimated that the whole mass of living substance in existence at one time would cover the surface of the earth to a depth of one-fifth of an inch.[7] The distribution of living organisms is a Biogeography.complex problem, a function of many factors, several of which are yet but little known. They include the biological nature of the organism and its physical environment, the latter involving conditions in which geographical elements, direct or indirect, preponderate. The direct geographical elements are the arrangement of land and sea (continents and islands standing in sharp contrast) and the vertical relief of the globe, which interposes barriers of a less absolute kind between portions of the same land area or oceanic depression. The indirect geographical elements, which, as a rule, act with and intensify the direct, are mainly climatic; the prevailing winds, rainfall, mean and extreme temperatures of every locality depending on the arrangement of land and sea and of land forms. Climate thus guided affects the weathering of rocks, and so determines the kind and arrangement of soil. Different species of organisms come to perfection in different climates; and it may be stated as a general rule that a species, whether of plant or animal, once established at one point, would spread over the whole zone of the climate congenial to it unless some barrier were interposed to its progress. In the case of land and fresh-water organisms the sea is the chief barrier; in the case of marine organisms, the land. Differences in land forms do not exert great influence on the distribution of living creatures directly, but indirectly such land forms as mountain ranges and internal drainage basins are very potent through their action on soil and climate. A snow-capped mountain ridge or an arid desert forms a barrier between different forms of life which is often more effective than an equal breadth of sea. In this way the surface of the land is divided into numerous natural regions, the flora and fauna of each of which include some distinctive species not shared by the others. The distribution of life is discussed in the various articles in this Encyclopaedia dealing with biological, botanical and zoological subjects.[8]- ↑ See, for a summary of river-action, A. Phillipson, Studien über Wasserscheiden (Leipzig, 1886); also I. C. Russell, River Development (London, 1898) (published as The Rivers of North America, New York, 1898).
- ↑ W. M. Davis, “The Geographical Cycle,” Geog. Journ. xiv. (1899) p. 484.
- ↑ A. Penck, “Potamology as a Branch of Physical Geography,” Geog. Journ. x. (1897) p. 619.
- ↑ See, for instance, E. Wisotzki, Hauptfluss und Nebenfluss (Stettin, 1889). For practical studies see official reports on the Mississippi, Rhine, Seine, Elbe and other great rivers.
- ↑ F. A. Forel, Handbuch der Seenkunde: allgemeine Limnologie (Stuttgart, 1901); F. A. Forel, “La Limnologie, branche de la géographie,” Report VI. Int. Geog. Congress (London, 1895), p. 593; also Le Léman (2 vols., Lausanne, 1892, 1894); H. Lullies, “Studien über Seen,” Jubiläumsschrift der Albertus-Universität (Königsberg, 1894); and G. R. Credner, “Die Reliktenseen,” Petermanns Mitteilungen, Ergänzungshefte 86 and 89 (Gotha., 1887, 1888).
- ↑ J. Murray, “Drainage Areas of the Continents,” Scot. Geog. Mag. ii. (1886) p. 548.
- ↑ Wagner, Lehrbuch der Geographie (1900), i. 586.
- ↑ For details, see A. R. Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals and Island Life; A. Heilprin, Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals (1887); O. Drude, Handbuch der Pflanzengeographie; A. Engler, Entwickelungsgeschichte der Pflanzenwelt; also Beddard, Zoogeography (Cambridge, 1895); and Sclater, The Geography of Mammals (London, 1899).
