DAVIS: RIVER TERRACES IN NEW ENGLAND. 303 
belt as a whole and the more local shifting of an irregularly sweeping 
meander. The compound movement of sweeping meanders in a swinging 
meander belt will be called wandering, this term being fully justified 
when it is noted that many unsystematic irregularities must be devel- 
oped in a stream channel, whereby it will depart significantly from the 
simple and regular movements here considered. The whole breadth of 
the valley floor that may be worn down by the stream will be called the 
belt of wandering; this corresponds to many of our flood plains or 
“ intervals.” 
In an ideal case, a regularly growing pattern of meander curves might 
be imagined slowly sweeping down a valley, the meander belt collapsing 
here and there, now and then, but growing again to its ordinary breadth 
as new curves are developed in the place of the old ones. At any point 
in the valley, an endless procession of meanders would sweep past. 
If it be now supposed that the wandering stream is slowly degrading 
its valley floor, each meander will sweep past a given point at a slightly 
lower level than that of its predecessor ; and each time the meander 
belt swings across the valley from one side to the other and back again, 
it will return at a distinctly lower level than that at which it left. The 
flood plains formed at different stages of this leisurely process will differ 
in altitude, and all of them will be inclined gently down the valley. It 
is the remnants of these flood plains that form our terrace plains. 
IpeaL Terrace Parrerns: Earty Stace. Soon after the stage of 
degradation has been definitely established and the meandering stream 
begins to swing across the valley at a little lower level than before, a 
condition represented in Figure 9 may be reached. In this figure, as in 
a number that follow, it is supposed that the view is taken from a 
considerable height, looking northwest across the valley of a south-flow- 
ing river. The terrace plains are left blank in most of the diagrams. 
The western meander in the foreground of Figure 9 is now scouring out 
a curve in a low concave terrace scarp, B, the ninth of its kind within the 
limits of the diagram. A small portion of a terrace, A, of slightly less 
height, is shown in the immediate foreground ; it may represent the work 
of the preceding westward meander, while the next following westward 
meander is cutting out a deeper terrace, C, in the background. Terrace 
A may be taken as one of the first marks made by the degrading stream. 
Terrace B is of greater height than A, because A has been under-cut and 
consumed in the production of B, except in the immediate foreground. 
Terrace C is as yet independent of B, and therefore shows a height to be 
measured only by the few inches or feet of depth to which one sweeping 
