The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 3, July, 1889Various
Science
The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 3, July, 1889
Various
Geography -- Periodicals
complicated statement is not much simplified if instead of beginning
with an original stream and searching out its present disjointed parts,
we trace the composition of a single existing stream from its once
independent parts. The Juniata of to-day consists of headwaters
acquired from Ohio streams; the lake in which the river once gathered
its upper branches is now drained and the lake bottom has become a
mountain top; the streams flow around the margin of the lake, not
across its basin; a short course towards Lewistown nearly coincides
with the original location of the stream, but to confound this with a
precise agreement is to lose the true significance of river history;
the lower course is the product of diversion at least at two epochs and
certainly in several places; and where the river now joins the
Susquehanna, it is suspected of having a superimposed course unlike any
of the rest of the stream. This is too complicated, even if it should
ever be demonstrated to be wholly true, to serve as material for
ordinary study; but as long as it has a savor of truth, and as long as
we are ignorant of the whole history of our rivers, through which alone
their present features can be rightfully understood, we must continue
to search after the natural processes of their development as carefully
and thoroughly as the biologist searches for the links missing from his
scheme of classification.
44. _Provisional Conclusions_.--It is in view of these doubts and
complications that I feel that the history of our rivers is not yet
settled; but yet the numerous accordances of actual and deductive
locations appear so definite and in some cases so remarkable that they
cannot be neglected, as they must be if we should adhere to the
antecedent origin of the river courses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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