Nature axd movemext of the modi:le ^ll 



extraordinary degree : When the effective competence varies as the fourth 

 power and the capacity as the sixth or seventh power of the flow and the 

 efficiency as the eighth or ninth power of the declivity (and the general 

 relation holds, regardless of the precise ratios remaining to be deter- 

 mined), the correlative factor is time; so that in any formula for the 

 liydrokinetic function, time will vary with a power of work so high as to 

 render the former factor comparatively unimportant. Similarly, the 

 mechanical work of the standing water forming the dominant division of 

 the hydrosphere is extraordinarily accelerative, according to the combina- 

 tion of external conditions (wind, tidal stress, bottom-friction, etcetera) 

 with the undulatory property. Perhaps the most effective function is wave- 

 work, which, like stream-work, tends to plane the lithosphere toward such 

 uniformity as to reduce its own energizing, as when waves augmented by 

 sea cliffs sap the cliffs and eventually remove the cause of their own 

 strength, while a single great wave may displace a larger rock than all 

 the average waves of a year, or those of a single storm may outwork the 

 mean waves of a decade ; the tides are notably cumulative, and doubtless 

 react on the terrestrial rotation ; while winds and tides cooperate in gener- 

 ating powerful currents which work cumulatively in distributing both 

 sediments and heat. Both in running and in standing water the accelera- 

 tion of work is cumulative in a geometric ratio, and so far resides in the 

 undulatory property of the liquid as sometimes to appear disproportionate 

 to the direct physical causation; and it is partly in this respect that the 

 behavior of moving water takes on the Irinetic or autonomous aspect, 

 likening it rather to organic activity than inorganic agency. Yet the 

 striking fact remains that both running and standing water work at a 

 rate conditioned if not initiated by environment for such reconstruction 

 of that environment as to fit it for the ready and harmonious movement 

 of the medium itself, much as the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere auto- 

 matically (or autonomously) regulates the temperature requisite for ita 

 own maintenance. 



In a general way, the virtually autonomous and accelerative property 

 of moving water conditions geologic process in its mechanical aspects: 

 Degradation and aggradation are measures of agency rather than time; 

 vertical miles of littoral sediments may be accumulated along continental 

 shelves, while the abysmal depths gather material so meager that most of 

 the mass is organic residua or meteoritic waste : while geomorphic sculp- 

 ture measures declivity a thousand-fold more accurately than time, so 

 that the 300-foot post-Lafayette (or Ozarkian) gorges of the Appalachian 

 rivers may have been cut while a fraction of one foot was washing from 

 tlie average surface of the intervening plains. In the broad sense, geo- 



