Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/274

 have thus far considered an ideal river. It now seems advisable to introduce a few terms with which to indicate concisely certain well marked peculiarities in the history of actual rivers.

An original river has already been defined as one which first takes possession of a land area, or which replaces a completely extinguished river on a surface of rapid deformation.

A river may be simple, if its drainage area is of practically one kind of structure and of one age; like the rivers of southern New Jersey. Such rivers are generally small. It may be composite, when drainage areas of different structure are included in the basin of a single stream. This is the usual case.

A compound river is one which is of different ages in its different parts; as certain rivers of North Carolina, which have old headwaters rising in the mountains, and young lower courses traversing the coastal plain.

A river is complex when it has entered a second or later cycle of development; the headwaters of a compound river are therefore complex, while the lower course may be simple, in its first cycle. The degree of complexity measures the number of cycles that the river has entered.

When the study of rivers is thus attempted, its necessary complications may at first seem so great as to render it of no value; but in answer to this I believe that it may be fairly urged that, although complicated, the results are true to nature, and if so, we can have no ground of complaint against them. Moreover, while it is desirable to reduce the study of the development of rivers to its simplest form, in order to make it available for instruction and investigation, it must be remembered that this cannot be done by neglecting to investigate the whole truth in the hope of avoiding too great complexity, but that simplicity can be reached safely only through fullness of knowledge, if at all.

It is with these points in mind that I have attempted to decipher the history of the rivers of Pennsylvania. We find in the Susquehanna, which drains a great area in the central part of the state, an example of a river which is at once composite, compound and highly complex. It drains districts of divers structure; it traverses districts of different ages; and it is at present in its fourth or fifth degree of complexity, its fourth or fifth cycle of development at least. In unravelling its history and searching out the earlier courses of streams which may have long since been abandoned in the processes of mature adjustment, it will be