Abstract
BEFORE writing to NATURE on the theory of winding rivers, it would have been wiser for me to have had some observations made as to the conditions of actual flow in the field in different circumstances. It is possible that the more complicated conditions which obtain in some places render the simple theory only partially applicable. My letter was immediately applicable rather to the flow in Prof. James Thomson's simplified model, where the artificial stream had a wooden bed, and the tendency to silt was indicated by short pieces of cotton pinned by one oend to the bottom. It may be that the deposit of drift on the inner side of some streams retards their flow by an unexpected amount; and probably there are other causes which prevent the James Thomson theory from being the last word on the subject. I do not pretend to be a field naturalist in any sense, and my cautionary note concerning the flow of glaciers I would ask readers to apply to the flow of rivers also, and to interpret the whole of my letter as a hint and exposition of theory rather than as an assertion and statement of fact.
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LODGE, O. The Winding of Rivers in Plains. Nature 77, 79 (1907). https://doi.org/10.1038/077079a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077079a0
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