Bulletin of the Geological Society of America

Grade is a condition of equilibrium in streams as agents of transportation. The validity of the concept has been questioned, but it is indispensable in any genetic study of fluvial erosional features and deposits. This paper modifies and extends the theory of grade originally set forth by Gilbert and Davis. A graded stream is one in which, over a period of years, slope is delicately adjusted to provide, with available discharge and the prevailing channel characteristics, just the velocity required for transportation of all of the load supplied from above. Slope usually decreases in a downvalley direction, but because discharge, channel characteristics, and load do not vary systematically along the stream, the graded profile is not a simple mathematical curve. Corrasive power and bed rock resistance to corrasion determine the slope of the ungraded profile, but have no direct influence on the graded profile. Chiefly because of a difference in rate of downvalley decrease in caliber of load, the aggrading profile differs in form from the graded profile; the aggrading profile is, and the. graded profile is not, asymptotic with respect to a horizontal line passing through base level. It is critical in any analysis of stream profiles to recognize the difference in slope-controlling factors in parts of the overall profile that are (1) graded, (2) ungraded, and (3) aggrading. A graded stream responds to a change in conditions in accordance with Le Chatelier's general law:—"if a stress is brought to bear on a system in equilibrium, a reaction occurs, displacing the equilibrium in a direction that tends to absorb the effect of the stress." Readjustment is effected primarily by appropriate modification of slope by upbuilding or downcutting, and only to a minor extent or not at all by concomitant changes in channel characteristics. Paired examples illustrate (1) the almost telegraphic rapidity with which the first phases of the reaction of a graded stream to a number of artificial changes are propagated upvalley and downvalley and, (2) the more or less complete readjustment that is effected over a period of thousands of years to analogous natural changes. The engineer is necessarily concerned chiefly with short-term and quantitative aspects of the reaction of a graded stream to changes in control, while the attention of the geologist is usually focused on the long-term and genetic aspects of the stream's response to changes. But the basic problems are the same, and a pooling of ideas and data may enable the engineer to improve his long range planning of river control measures and permit the geologist to interpret, in quantitative terms, the deposits of ancient streams.