Ragotzkie: Yes. 



Chapman: I have been most interested in this. When I was looking in the 



English salt marshes, and particularly at Edinburgh, it seemed 

 to me that there were three types of creek systems that one 

 could find in the marshes. First of all there was this thing that 

 Dr. Ragotzkie has called the dendritic system. It looked like a 

 knocked down oak tree. Then in some other marshes you would 

 get a kind of candelabra system with one main stream and a 

 whole lot of parallel ones running into it, and then there was 

 also the case in which we got practically no creek systems at 

 all. Now it seemed to me that these three types of creek 

 systems are tied up with the nature of the geography of the 

 marsh, in other words, with the relative proportions of sand 

 and silt that you have got, and also, I agree with Dr. Redfield, 

 whether you are getting a peat formation because once you have 

 got peat formation I do think that your creek systems remain 

 remarkably stable. But I do think that you get a different type 

 of creek system on a very sandy marsh compared to a muddy 

 marsh. 



I think the plants themselves may also determine the creek 

 system, particularly when you have got a plant like Spartina 

 which, once it is established, is going to determine where your 

 creeks are going to go. It is probably pretty difficult to erode 

 a clump of Spartina once it has got hold in the mud. 



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