These few illustrations are suggestive of the innumerable 

 balanced relationships in detail among fresh water, organic 

 life, and soil factors. They indicate the importance of main- 

 taining, to the degree that is practicable, the regularity of 

 storage and flow of fresh waters, from headwater creek to the 

 great river mouth. 



The natural balance of land and water forces does not 

 represent complete balance and perfectly stable relationships. 

 It represents rather a broad frame of balance within which 

 many variations occur. On the whole, however, the play 

 of forces is such that there is established a maximum inter- 

 play and conservation of soils, waters, and vegetative cover. 



In Nature there is not, for instance, special provision for 

 prevention of floods, either on the little waters which concern 

 us here, or on great rivers and their major tributaries. On 

 the whole they are accepted. But under undisturbed natural 

 arrangements floods apparently have a lower crest because 

 of retardation of flow, and the amount of water in streams is 

 greater during dry seasons than it otherwise would be. 

 These arrangements may even influence the magnitude of 

 major floods on large rivers caused by an abnormal com- 

 bination of water-soaked soils and heavy precipitation on 

 headwater areas so timed as to bring their contributory 

 floods together into one great flood on the main stem of the 

 drainage system. Generally, however, floods are permitted 

 to encroach upon low-lying lands adjacent to the regular 

 channels, and these flood plains are clothed with vegetation 

 suitable to their environment. 



The natural factors which have been discussed offered to 

 the first settlers of the United States and their descendants 

 a continent of rich resources and apparently unlimited 

 opportunity. The question arises whether in exploiting 

 these resources they have also conserved them, that is, used 

 them wisely; or whether they have so upset the natural 

 balance of forces as to destroy resources which when in 

 balance are essentially indestructible, and have thereby put 

 in jeopardy the maintenance of that high standard of living 

 to which the people of the United States have become 

 accustomed. 



17 



