The divide creeps while the two opposing subsequent branches are in contest; it leaps when the successful subsequent branch reaches the channel of the conquered stream. The first stream captured in this way must necessarily be the nearest to the large stream. The diversion of the considerable volume of headwaters, H, to the channel of the small subsequent branch, G, causes it to
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Fig. 4.
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Fig. 5.
deepen its channel rapidly; the same effect is perceptible in H for a distance above its point of capture and diversion: the increased load of sediment thus given to G will be in great part dropped in a fan-delta where it enters the flat valley of the master stream, A, (fig. 6).
Gaining strength by conquest, other captures are made, faster for a time, but with decreasing slowness as the head of the divert-
