Some time before the war I examined the profiles, or longitudinal sections, of several rivers, with the object of ascertaining whether they tended towards any particular curve. The method of examination was similar to that employed by Professor O. T. Jones in his interesting paper on “The Upper Towy Drainage System”, but the data were obtained from maps and were not so exact as his. Some rivers showed a very close approximation to a catenary for the greater part of their course, but this was not the case with all. My final conclusion was that there is no general curve towards which all river-profiles tend the form is influenced by the rate at which the volume of the river increases downwards. No sufficient data, however, were available in the case of any river for the exact application of a general theory which was in my mind, and such approximations as were possible were too rough to be of any real value.
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. Ixxx (1924), pp. 568–607.Google Scholar
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxv (1869), p. 73.Google Scholar
2 Phil. Mag., vol. xxxvi (1918), pp. 179–90.Google Scholar
1 p.269 (edn. 1881).