1.

5 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

DR Oldroyd, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
r 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1.5.1 Introduction 65
1.5.2 William Morris Davis and a Paradigm for Geomorphology 65
1.5.3 Davisian Reasoning 67
1.5.4 Articulation of the Davisian Paradigm 67
1.5.4.1 The Davisian Cycle for Arid Regions 68
1.5.4.2 Davis on Coastal Geomorphology 68
1.5.4.3 Davis on Glaciers and Glacial Geomorphology 68
1.5.4.4 Davisian Theory Applied to Karst Topography 68
1.5.4.5 Davis and Coral Atolls 69
1.5.5 Tectonic Considerations in Relation to Davisian Theory 69
1.5.6 Local Opposition to Davis 70
1.5.7 Davisian Doctrines Applied Overseas: Some Examples 70
1.5.7.1 Australasia 70
1.5.7.2 Britain 70
1.5.7.3 France 71
1.5.7.4 China 71
1.5.8 German Opposition to Davisian Ideas: Walther Penck’s Alternative 71
1.5.9 Germany and America: Differences of Opinion 73
1.5.10 Lester King in Africa: Davis Rewritten 74
1.5.11 Periglacial Geomorphology 76
1.5.12 The Beginnings of Quantitative and Experimental Geomorphology 76
1.5.13 Stream Patterns and Drainage Development 80
1.5.14 Landforms Produced by Etching 80
1.5.15 The Movement of Sand and Soil by Wind: Bagnold’s Investigations 81
1.5.16 Conclusion 82
References 83

Glossary Flume An artificial inclined channel used for irrigation,

Austausch (or exchange or eddy) coefficient A measure
of turbulent mixing: equal to mass  the transverse distance
traveled in unit time by a fluid in turbulent flow as it passes
unit area parallel to the general direction of flow. (German:
Austausch ¼ exchange.)
Barchan A crescent-shaped sand dune lying transversely
to the prevailing wind direction, with its gently sloping
convex side facing the wind.
Epeirogeny Large-scale upward or downward movements
of continental or oceanic areas.
Etching The slow reduction of the Earth’s surface by
differential weathering, often occurring below the external
land-surface due to chemical processes in the regolith in
wet-tropical environments.
Eustasy Worldwide changes in sea level due to changes
in total quantity of sea water (e.g., due to the formation
or melting of glaciers or to ocean basin volume
changes (e.g., due to overall changes in plate tectonic
rates)).
etc., or for investigations of the transport of sediments by
water or wind.
Grade A condition of balance or adjustment when
erosion and deposition are equal. May apply to either
streams or hill-slopes, hence graded streams or slopes.
Isarithm A line drawn on a map connecting points of
equal value for some variables.
Isopachyte or isopach A line drawn on a map through
points of equal true thickness of a stratigraphic unit.
Nickpoint A place where there is an abrupt change in the
gradient of a stream. Commonly marked by a waterfall.
Orogeny An episode of mountain building when a belt of
the Earth’s crust is compressed by lateral forces.
Paradigm A piece of scientific work, which, with its
associated theories and practical procedures, serves as a
model or exemplar for other pieces of research.
Pediment A surface of low relief, usually covered by rock
debris, concave-up, and sloping gently upward toward the
base of a mountain zone. Typically occurs in arid regions.

Oldroyd, D.R., 2013. Geomorphology in the first half of the twentieth

century. In: Shroder, J. (Editor in Chief), Orme, A.R., Sack, D. (Eds.),
Treatise on Geomorphology. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, vol. 1, The
Foundations of Geomorphology, pp. 64–85.

64 Treatise on Geomorphology, Volume 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-374739-6.00005-1

 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 65

Peneplain An ‘almost plain.’ The supposed end-product of Regolith The mantle of fragmental or unconsolidated
a (‘Davisian’) cycle of erosion, being a surface of low relief rock that generally covers a land-surface over the bedrock.
with meandering watercourses in wide valleys and gentle
convex-up hillsides.

Abstract

An overview of the history of geomorphology in the first half of the twentieth century is given – when the cyclic theory of
erosion and landscape formation proposed by W. M. Davis dominated the field and became ‘paradigmatic’ for many
authors. Davis envisaged periods of uplift followed by erosion (chiefly fluvial) that yielded successively ‘youthful,’ ‘mature,’
and ‘old’ landscapes. Such a cycle could be repeated after further uplift. Davis extended his ideas, first developed in New
England, to arid, glacial, and marine environments and the development of coral atolls. His views were challenged by
Walther Penck, who argued that the lateral erosion of valleys and land surfaces was as important as downward erosion. The
final stage of a Davisian cycle was called a peneplain, the real existence of which, or otherwise, became controversial.
Experimental geomorphology was initiated by G.K. Gilbert, who introduced the notion of graded rivers (a concept also
deployed by Davis). Gilbert conducted experiments on the effects of flowing water on sediments, using artificial flumes, and
later applied his ideas to the movement of debris in real rivers. His quantitative approach was developed by workers such as
Mackin, Leighly and Hjulström, who studied rivers’ carrying capacities both graphically and mathematically. Stream pat-
terns were investigated mathematically by such workers as Horton, Strahler and Schreve. The idea that erosion could
proceed below the upper surface of a landscape (‘etching’) was developed by several authors, notably in Africa and
Australia. The movement of desert sands was investigated in the North African deserts and in wind tunnels in London by
Ralph Bagnold, who developed an equation for the movement of sand-grains by wind.

‘As a result of his great didactic skill, supported by a rare ability
to draw, and the alluring simplicity of his doctrine, Davis’s
views have been as widely accepted as was Hegel’s philosophy
in its day.’ Hettner (1921), translated by Philip Tilley (1972:
pp. xxx–xxxi)
1.5.1 Introduction
In his ‘Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ (1962), Thomas
Kuhn discussed how a successful piece of work could serve as
an exemplar for further research, using the methods and the-
ories of the successful work as a paradigm for these investi-
gations. In the process of further work, some adjustments to,
or modifications of, the original ideas might be required; and
there could be anomalies. However, by extending the original
work and attempting to apply it to other cases, one could
explore the paradigm and ascertain its strengths and weak-
nesses. This process Kuhn called the ‘articulation’ of a para-
digm, meaning its expression or application, which might
involve ‘bending’ or modifying it to fit cases or problems that
were not considered in the initial work. This, suggested Kuhn,
was the way science typically worked: it was ‘normal science.’
But if too many anomalies begin to appear, dissatisfaction
develops and various alternative theories and methods may be
proposed. If one of the new approaches (involving both the-
ory and practice) proves successful and is generally adopted
then there is a scientific revolution. A classic example in Earth
science has been the emergence of plate tectonics.
Kuhn’s views have come in for much criticism in recent
years, with the complaint that his ideas about paradigms in
science were inconsistent and vague, were drawn on too
large a scale, and were responsible for the support of irrational
or ‘herd’ behavior in science and various other evils! Kuhn
himself admitted that the word ‘paradigm’ had diverse
meanings. Critics have also claimed that there is no such thing
as normal science; or if there is it is bad science, being
uncritical.
Nevertheless, if we simply think of a paradigm as a suc-
cessful piece of work that serves as a model or exemplar for
other work in the same field then one can find many examples
in the history of geoscience, in addition to those involved in the
plate-tectonics revolution – and none better than the theory of
the cycle of erosion propounded by the American geographer
William Morris Davis (1850–1934). His ideas dominated the
field in Anglophone countries and France in the first half of the
twentieth century and his cyclic theory can reasonably be said
to have been paradigmatic. Certainly his cyclic concepts were
widely used by others in their investigations. So we could think
of the production of various applications and exemplifications
of Davis’s theory as an example of ‘normal science’; with the
various applications and modifications it received before
being eventually discarded constituting the ‘articulation’ of the
paradigm. Charles Darwin (1809–82) wrote about his theory
of natural selection in his autobiography: ‘‘here then I had
at last got a theory by which to work’’ (Darwin, 1887: 83).
Geomorphologists who followed Davis seemingly thought that
way about his geomorphic theory.
1.5.2 William Morris Davis and a Paradigm for
Geomorphology
Davis was born in Philadelphia, as the son of Quaker parents.
He attended Harvard University, where he took a BSc degree
and a Master of Engineering. In the 1870s he made
66 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

meteorological studies in Argentina and served as assistant to more than once. In this way, ‘senile’ landscapes are ‘rejuven-
Raphael Pumpelly on the Northern Pacific railroad survey and ated’ and stages of youth, maturity, and old age become truly
to Nathaniel Shaler at Harvard, where he was appointed as an cyclic. A leading tenet of Davis’ theory is that relict landforms
instructor in 1879. By 1890 Davis had a full professorship from earlier cycles allow landscapes to be interpreted in terms
there in physical geography but also worked with the U.S. of several cycles of erosion. A clear exposition of Davis’s cyclic
Geological Survey (USGS) and held visiting positions in Paris theory was published in the year after his death by Maxson
and Berlin. In 1915, he retired from Harvard and thereafter and Anderson (1935), and its strengths and limitations have
served as a visiting lecturer at various leading American uni- since been revisited many times (e.g., Flemal, 1971; Chorley
versities. He was a founding Fellow of the Geological Society et al., 1973; Sack, 1992; Sherman, 1996; Orme, 2007). Al-
of America and was the driving force behind the Association of though Davis did not himself provide a simple
American Geographers, founded in 1904, for which he served pictorial representation of his theory, others did so without
three times as President. With these institutional advantages compunction (Figure 1).
and his remarkable number of publications written in a fluent Davis first gave extended written expression to these ideas
style and with numerous attractive illustrations, and with his in describing the river systems of the Appalachians in Penn-
significant efforts in education, he was in a position to exercise sylvania and New Jersey (Davis, 1889b). This was a rather
a dominant influence on the establishment and early devel- complicated area to consider, strata of differing hardness
opment of physical geography. This was cemented by his being strongly folded. Assuming that the valleys had been
textbooks, which became widely used in the Anglophone formed in the manner envisaged in his theory, he sought to
world (Davis, 1901, 1902). elucidate the geomorphic history of the region by considering
Davis built his geomorphic theories on the field investi- the development of river patterns in response to lithology
gations of others, notably John Wesley Powell (1834–1902), and structure, and for anomalies he invoked the concept
Clarence Edward Dutton (1841–1912), and Grove Karl Gilbert of ‘river capture’ or, as he called it (illustrating his penchant
(1843–1918), who had been much influenced by their ex- for anthropomorphisms) ‘river piracy’ (Davis, 1889c).
periences in the American West. Following several years of The theory was treated more generally, without reference
exploration, notably in and around the Grand Canyon, Powell
(1875) introduced notions of antecedent drainage and base
level. He explained the Grand Canyon in terms of an ante-
cedent Colorado River that incised its course during the uplift
of the Colorado Plateau. He introduced the idea of base level,
ultimately sea level, below which a land surface could not be
reduced by running water. Accepting this idea, Dutton wrote:
‘‘All regions are tending to base levels of erosion, and if the
time be long enough each region will, in its turn, approach
nearer and nearer and at last sensibly reach it’’ (Dutton, 1882:
102). Gilbert (1876) introduced the notion of ‘grade’ for the
curve of a river profile wherein sediment transport and Youth
channel erosion and deposition are more or less balanced, (a)
and no significant change in channel gradient occurs. This
form of dynamic equilibrium, which reflected Gilbert’s inter-
est in physical principles and Newtonian natural philosophy
(Pyne, 1980), was readily adopted by Davis but became in-
creasingly problematic as geomorphology matured (see Orme,
Chapter 1.12).
Davis lived in an age when Darwinian concepts were be-
coming increasingly popular and he made free use of bio-
logical or anthropomorphic metaphors in his writings, Maturity
notably in his models of landform evolution. The best-known (b)

example was his ‘life cycle’ of landform development: pro-

gressing in stages from youth through maturity to old age. In
this model, an initial flattish surface is raised by tectonic forces
above the base level of subaerial erosion. During the ‘youthful’
stage, subaerial runoff consequent to uplift becomes increas-
ingly organized until distinctive stream patterns begin to incise
this surface, although waterfalls and rapids survive where hard
and soft rocks alternate. Gradually, the original surface is de- Old age
voured by river erosion, yielding a ‘mature’ landscape of hills (c)
and valleys. With sufficient time, rocks of varying resistance are Figure 1 Stages of landform evolution, according to W.M. Davis’s
worn down by rain and rivers to a gently sloping plain of ‘old ideas. Reproduced from Holmes, A. 1944. Principles of Physical
age,’ which Davis (1889a) called a ‘peneplain.’ If uplift is Geology. Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. London and New York,
renewed, this sequence of events might be repeated, perhaps 531 pp.
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
to a specific area, in two papers (Davis, 1899a, 1905a).
His thinking was historical and evolutionary. Rivers ‘struggled
for existence.’ This was quite different from Gilbert’s way of
thinking and later that of Walther Penck. As shown in sub-
sequent debates, Davis had devised a compelling scheme; but
it was but one manifestation of different ways of thinking
about geomorphology.
1.5.3 Davisian Reasoning
In principle, Davis’s method was akin to that of one of the
great founders of geology, the Dane, Nicolaus Steno
(1651–87), in his work titled ‘Prodromus’ (Steno, 1669). In
this book, Steno looked at what might be seen in the Arno
Valley in Tuscany and asked himself what event(s) might have
led to the present disposition of the rocks there. Then he went
back a step further and asked himself what might have hap-
pened to produce that state of affairs. And so he continued
through six supposed states of the landscape, famously rep-
resented by him in the form of a sequence of six cross-sections.
The Danish geologist and historian of geology Hansen
(2009, p. 175) has called this mode of reasoning ‘back strip-
ping.’ Davis used it repeatedly but claimed that he was using a
‘deductive approach.’ The term that would be used today is
‘abductive’: one has something to be explained; one proposes
a hypothesis or model that might explain it; and one tests this
hypothesis by further experiment or observation. Or, as put
schematically by the American philosopher Charles Peirce
(1839–1914) (who introduced the term ‘abduction’):
The surprising fact, C, is observed;
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course;
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.
(Peirce, 1931–1935, vol. 2: 374; from Peirce, 1903)
Such a form of scientific reasoning can also be called hypo-
thetico-deductivism, and is much used in science, not least in the
Earth sciences. Baker (1996) has shown that leading American
Earth scientists of the time, such as Gilbert, Chamberlin, and
Davis, were all significantly influenced by Peirce, though the
evidence for Davis is somewhat circumstantial. In line with
Peirce’s pragmatic methodology of science, Davis (1926) advo-
cated the formulation of ‘outrageous hypotheses’ to assist the
progress of science, and in so doing foreshadowed by many years
the notorious methodological views of Paul Feyerabend in his
‘Against Method’ (Feyerabend, 1975).
Be this as it may, as regards his cyclic theory Davis earlier
wrote:
A y means of deciding the question [of how an observed land
form was produced] will be to admit provisionally the occurrence
of a completely original system of consequent drainage, located in
perfect accord with the slopes of the growing mountains; to study
out the changes of stream-courses that would result from later
disturbances and from the mutual adjustments of the several
members of such a system in the different cycles of its history; and
finally to compare the courses thus deduced with those now seeny
[I]f the accord between deduction and fact be well markedythen it
seems to me that the best conclusion is distinctly in favor of the
correctness of the deductions (Davis, 1889b: 220).
67
However, such a procedure may be used to create ‘Just-So
Stories.’ Obviously, for any given landform a considerable
number of hypotheses can be suggested to account for what
may be seen in the field or revealed on maps. The problem is
to find the one that accounts most satisfactorily for the greatest
number of observations or data, or gives the most ‘coherent’
explanation. Certainly Davis had successes with his model and
mode of reasoning. His concern was the formation of land-
scapes by mass wasting, erosion, and sediment transport (i.e.,
denudation), and the chronology of events that led to things
being the way they appear at present. Hence his aim was to
establish denudation chronologies, and this became a major
quest for geomorphologists in what became the Davisian
school. Even so, from the beginning, Davis’s account of initial
uplift followed by erosion through stages until a landscape
reaches maturity or even senility, followed by renewed uplift
and a new cycle of erosion, was obviously an oversimplifi-
cation. For example, further uplift and rejuvenation might well
occur before the full cycle was completed, whereas sea level
changes driven by isostatic and glacio-eustatic forces would
add further complexity.
Anyway, in his classic paper on the Appalachians, Davis
claimed evidence for at least four cycles: Permian-Triassic,
Jurassic-Cretaceous, an ‘incomplete’ Tertiary event, and Qua-
ternary, each being initiated by an uplift event. His Appalachian
papers also involved processes leading to rivers shifting from
synclinal axes to the eroded axes of adjacent anticlines, Gilbert’s
idea of the migration of divides (due to unequal erosive action
on opposite sides of a range), reversals of drainage due to river
capture (producing ‘elbow’ bends and ‘boat-hook’ river junc-
tions), and the formation of wind-gaps by the abandonment of
river courses by river capture, or of water-gaps where a river
maintained its course despite the elevation of a ridge across its
original route. A significant kind of evidence was thought to be
furnished by apparent relics of old erosion surfaces at different
levels. These might be identified from specific quasi-horizontal
surfaces at different altitudes, as in upland plateaus, or from
sets of isolated summits at similar heights, suggesting the for-
mer existence of former existence of peneplains that are now
dissected by erosion. Such phenomena are manifest in many
regions and can also be inferred from contour maps. Stimu-
lated by Davis’s theories, enquiries along these lines became a
popular pursuit in the early twentieth century. Davis’s doctrine
stood in marked contrast to some earlier British ideas of the
nineteenth century, such as those of Andrew Ramsay (1814–91)
who initially emphasized the significance of marine, rather
than subaerial, planation (Davis, 1896a; Goudie, Chapter 1.3).
But after the appearance of Davis’s papers his ideas were taken
up with as much enthusiasm in Britain and elsewhere, as in
America.
1.5.4 Articulation of the Davisian Paradigm
Davis’s initial area of study was, then, the wooded, fertile, and
humid regions of Appalachia and New England, but he also
extended his model of landscape evolution to arid regions
(Davis, 1905b) and to erosive activity in alpine or glaciated
areas (Davis, 1906a). He was ‘articulating’ his own ideas. They
served as his paradigm!
68 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

1.5.4.1 The Davisian Cycle for Arid Regions reflecting rock hardness. During the process, coastal rocks are
degraded whereas bottom sediment migrates farther offshore.
For arid regions, Davis (1905a, b) envisaged an initially ele-
The form of the coastline also changes as promontories suffer
vated flattish surface swept by winds and on which, during
greater erosion and comminuted matter is transferred from
youth, isolated drainage basins might develop, with local base
them to nearby bays. So the coastline becomes straighter. There
levels formed by transient lakes and playas. Both consequent
may also be longshore transference, which increases as the
and subsequent streams (formed as tributaries to consequent
shoreline becomes straighter, although the amount of sediment
streams, generally running parallel with the strike of strata, and
generated may form beaches, spits, and curved barriers, ex-
cut into the softer strata) may be developed, but these rarely
tending the coastline seaward and in the direction dictated by
carry material out of the arid region. This is done by wind – as
winds, tides, and currents. With such inferences, Davis could
occurs when fine material from the Asian deserts is carried off
make sense of coastal phenomena to his satisfaction; in this, he
in dust storms, producing the loess deposits of northern China.
was supported in 1919 by his long-time admirer Douglas
Davis suggested that maturity approaches as material ero-
Johnson (1919), Prof. at Columbia University.
ded from the highlands by wind and water is gradually
transferred to lower basins, so that streams from two or more
basins may coalesce into a larger, more integrated system of 1.5.4.3 Davis on Glaciers and Glacial Geomorphology
drainage. By ‘inorganic natural selection,’ higher base levels are
For the evolution of glaciated valleys, Davis (1900) again in-
replaced by fewer and lower ones, and headward extension of
voked his concept of youth, maturity, and old age. He envis-
graded piedmont slopes proceeds. But the erosive power of
aged an initial land surface raised sufficiently high for snow to
wind is less dependent on slope so, compared with the cycle
accumulate and glaciers to develop in upland basins. These
for humid climates, erosion continues without abatement as
glaciers eventually descend to lower altitudes and melt away at
an arid landscape evolves through its mature stage, with less
their snouts. For any glacier, ice reaches a maximum volume at
irregular surfaces gradually being generated. At full maturity,
some place between its source and the snout. Erosion is
because detritus has been transported beyond the highlands
caused by moving ice or by water flowing under the ice,
(and also out of the system altogether), only one large basin
thereby transporting a large load of rock debris downslope.
(the lowest) remains.
For a youthful glacier, erosion occurs along its whole length,
For old age, Davis proposed that wind-formed hollows
but gradually slopes in its upper reaches will be increased
might occur in a landscape that is losing, or has lost, its higher
while they decrease in the lower reaches. In time, a glacier’s
ground by erosion and is generally of low relief. In such cir-
energy in its lower reaches will be spent on transporting ma-
cumstances, the unified drainage pattern may be disrupted,
terial and it will largely cease to be an eroding agent. This state
and replaced by more localized and variable systems. But
of affairs will begin toward the snout and slowly propagate
downward erosion still occurs until eventually a near-level
headward. A part of a glacier where there is a balance between
rock floor is formed, with detritus being produced and ‘ex-
the ‘ability to do work and the work to be done’ could be said
ported’ by wind at about the same rates. Such a surface can be
to be ‘graded.’ The stage of ‘maturity’ is reached when the
lower than any original hollows and even below sea level
whole extent of a glacier is in this graded state. In ‘old age,’ the
(Davis didn’t know any examples in the North American
work of ice has reduced the height of the mountains and their
deserts but was aware of French and German work in Africa).
snowfields, so that glaciers shrink and eventually disappears
So in arid environments one could have leveling without base
(possibly also due to climatic changes), leaving ‘normal’
leveling. Hard rock that resisted weathering would stand as
agencies to carry on the work of denudation.
monadnocks or inselbergs: residuals of an older topography.
But these rock floors should be distinguished from peneplains,
which have a different origin and form. A desert cycle (better 1.5.4.4 Davisian Theory Applied to Karst Topography
called a sequence) is not rejuvenated in the same manner as a
peneplain in a humid climate. In fact, desert conditions are Davis did not himself give much attention to the application of
likely to be terminated by land tilting or climate change. cyclic theory to karst regions, but others did, such as the
eminent Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijić (1865–1927) who
had studied limestone landscapes for his doctorate in Vienna
1.5.4.2 Davis on Coastal Geomorphology (Cvijić, 1918). He recognized that karst regions do not form
peneplains or undergo the usual cycle of erosion. Nevertheless,
Davis (1896b) also sought to account for coastline develop- he proposed an evolutionary model for such terrains, involving
ment, making direct analogies with his ideas on the evolution four stages that referred respectfully to Davis’s ideas:
of rivers. He divided his analysis into onshore and offshore
activities and longshore ones. For the former one might im-
agine waves breaking on a rocky coastline and generating Youth: normal river incision and valley formation into a quasi-
planar limestone surface.
sediment, which is washed out to sea by wave-generated cur- Maturity: surface drainage disappears; fissures enlarge to caves;
rents. This situation could be akin to that of a youthful river sink-holes form.
that carries its sediment load with ease and incises the land- Late maturity: underground rivers with no surface expression;
scape. In time, however, the amount of waste generated by cliff valleys form as cave roofs founder beneath old valley floors.
Old age: Erosion lowers the land surface to underlying non-
erosion increases while the wave and current energy declines.
limestone rocks and ‘normal’ erosion proceeds; fragments of karst
When a state of balance is reached, the shore can be said to be landscape survive as ‘hums.’
graded (maturity), with the time taken to reach this situation
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 69

A
B
F

Figure 2 Sector diagram showing the supposed evolution of an atoll in the Exploring Islands. (A) initial volcanic island; (B) island after erosion,
subsidence, and coral reef formation; (C) stage of maximum submergence; (D) same following uplift and exposure of lagoon; (E) after cessation of
uplift and erosion of most of limestone area; (F) appearance after further subsidence, with formation of a new lagoon and barrier reef, as observed
at present. Reproduced with permission from Davis, W.M., 1928. The Coral Reef Problem. American Geographical Society, New York, 596 pp.

Karst topographies therefore evolved, even if they did not
undergo full cyclic development, which would be impossible
without the deposition of further, younger layers of limestone.
An exposition of Cvijić’s scheme in English was provided by
Ellen Mary Sanders (1921).
1.5.4.5 Davis and Coral Atolls
Davis devoted much attention to the problem of coral reefs
and in 1914 made an expedition across the Pacific Ocean to
that end. He sought to settle the question of whether reefs and
atolls owed their form to ocean-floor movement, with sub-
sidence being countered by concomitant upward growth of
coral (Darwin, 1842; Dana, 1853), or to glacio-eustatic
changes in sea level, as suggested by his Harvard colleague, the
Canadian Reginald Daly (1871–1957). Daly (1910, 1915)
suggested that coral reefs did not form around subsiding
islands, as Darwin had proposed, but were governed by fluc-
tuations of sea level resulting from episodes of global glaci-
ation. During a glacial stage, sea level would fall and coral
islands would be peneplaned. Then, during interglacial stages,
sea level would rise again and new coral reefs would be
formed round the rims of these planar islands.
Davis (1928) eventually produced a book describing in
detail the forms and presumed evolution of many Pacific reefs
and atolls, the object of which, among other things, may have
been to falsify Daly’s theory. His main point was that, ac-
cording to Daly, atolls have been built onto and around old,
worn-down, stable volcanic islands, as sea levels rose after the
termination of a glacial episode. But if that were the case (said
Davis) some islands could be expected to be cliffed, if only
partly eroded away when the sea level was low. But such cliffs
are not found. Further, Daly supposed that the large area of
coral islands was generally stable, because of their approxi-
mately equal lagoon depths. Defending Darwin’s model,
Davis made a close examination of the forms of the islands,
lagoons, and atolls, and sought to work out the history of
each – which might involve both subsidence and uplift, and
glacio-eustatic sea-level changes. He could not offer a general
cyclic model as each island had to be considered separately
according to the vicissitudes of its formation. But he did offer
an account of the several stages of the histories of the islands
by means of pie charts, as for example, for the Exploring Isles
near Fiji (Figure 2). It will be seen that there was a kind of
cyclicity to the model, and a characteristic Davisian diagram-
matic representation of the history. It was, at the very least, a
plausible ‘Just-So’ story!
1.5.5 Tectonic Considerations in Relation to
Davisian Theory
Davis’s ideas, like those of so many of his time, were much
influenced by the tectonic concepts of the distinguished Aus-
trian geologist Eduard Suess (1906). With respect to global
sea-level change, Suess supposed that ocean basins gradually
filled with sediment, thereby causing sea level to rise (and a
concomitant lowering of land altitudes, with reduced ero-
sion). In contrast, his belief in Earth’s thermal contraction
as a cause of mountain building led him to suppose that the
lateral compression of the crust would cause relatively rapid
collapse of the ocean basins, which would cause sea level
to fall (Suess, vol. 2, 1906, Chapter 14; first German ed.,
3 volumes, 1885–1909). Such eustatic changes would lead to
the slow denudation of land surfaces to form peneplains,
followed by relatively rapid land uplift and consequent re-
juvenation of landforms. Thus Davis had a tectonic rationale
for his cyclic theory. Suess’s theory also held open the possi-
bility of effecting worldwide stratigraphic correlations. His
theory of eustasy was developed in Germany (not necessarily
to its advantage or in accordance with Suess’s earlier ideas) by
Hans Stille (1876–1966), who envisaged a ‘law of orogenic
synchronicity,’ evidenced by supposedly synchronous and
correlatable unconformities. By the close of his career, Stille
70 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
had identified some 50 synchronous orogenic phases during
the Phanerozoic, occurring as pulses when a portion of the
Earth’s crust was stabilised and the continents were enlarged.
He also proposed alternating periods of orogenic and
epeirogenic activity (Stille, 1918, 1922, 1924). His ideas were
deployed by Abel Briquet and Henri Baulig in their geo-
morphological writings. But S- engör (1991) has subsequently
pointed out the circularities of Stille’s arguments.
1.5.6 Local Opposition to Davis
Despite its success and attraction, the Davisian theory was not
without critics. Notably, the Prof. of Physical Geography at
Cornell, Ralph Stockman Tarr (1864–1912) took issue with
Davis’s notion of the ‘peneplain’ (Tarr, 1898). He averred that
some upland surfaces thought to be former peneplains had
never been lowlands of low relief. The claimed residual flat
surfaces of the supposed New England peneplain were too
fragmentary to provide clear evidence for their origin as
planed-down topography. The process of peneplanation was
inherently unlikely, thought Tarr, though he accepted the
notion of ‘mature’ topography. He willingly accepted that
erosion could reduce the relief of mountains, but the rate of
denudation decreased greatly the more the land was leveled.
Tarr’s preferred explanation of the New England terrain was
that it represented a mature topography that had been re-
activated by uplift.
Davis responded vigorously (Davis, 1899b). Perhaps the
most interesting issue was Tarr’s claim that no present-day
peneplain was known anywhere, a point that, if true, would
make Davis’s theory quite at odds with uniformitarian
orthodoxy. But Davis claimed that the piedmont plains of
New England and the Great Plains of eastern Montana served
as sufficient examples of peneplains, although both were
already dissected by river valleys – implying that rejuvenation
was already underway. For supposed ‘complete’ peneplains
Davis had recourse to buried surfaces, such as that which,
from unconnected exposures, seemed to underlie the Car-
boniferous Limestone of northwest England. But this was by
no means the same as looking directly at convincing present-
day peneplains. In retrospect, it would appear that Tarr had
the better case; but it did not prevail at that time.
1.5.7 Davisian Doctrines Applied Overseas: Some
Examples
1.5.7.1 Australasia
Davis’s cyclic model attracted many supporters round the world
for well over half a century. In New Zealand, he found a devoted
advocate in Charles Cotton (1885–1970), Prof. of Geology at
Victoria University, Wellington, who published numerous
books and articles on his country’s landforms (e.g., Cotton,
1922, 1941). He later recorded that between 1909 and 1914 he
read every word of Davis he could get hold of (Grapes, 2008,
296), and he succeeded, to his own satisfaction, in applying
Davis’s ideas to a country that was entirely different from New
England and Appalachia where they were initially developed.
In Australia, Davis’s ideas were taken up with no less en-
thusiasm by the New South Wales Government Geologist, Er-
nest Andrews (1870–1948), and Griffith Taylor (1880–1963),
founder of the School of Geography at the University of
Sydney (e.g., Andrews, 1903; Taylor, 1923). Andrews met
Gilbert in the U.S. in 1908, and Davis shortly afterward in
Britain. He formed the opinion that British geomorphologists
were considerably behind their American and Canadian
counterparts (Andrews, n.d., p. 82), meaning (perhaps) that
they were not yet making good use of Davisian theory.
Andrews in particular was inclined to regard the large flat
surfaces of Triassic sandstones in the Blue Mountains near
Sydney as an old peneplain rather than a depositional surface.
Also, he proposed a substantial uplift of eastern Australia
as late as the Pleistocene (Andrews’ so-called Kosciusko
uplift), an unhelpful idea that persisted in some quarters until
the 1960s.
1.5.7.2 Britain
In Britain, survey geologist Sydney Hollingworth (1899–1966,
later Prof. at University College, London) identified a multi-
tude (13!) of putative erosional platforms in and around the
mountainous Lake District of northwest England, supposedly
discernible from topographic maps and field observation
(Hollingworth, 1937, 1938). The lower steps were thought to
be of marine origin; the upper ones chiefly subaerial. Both land
uplift and sea-level changes were supposedly involved. The
motivation for these studies, clearly Davisian in origin, was to
use geomorphic information to demonstrate tectonic uplift.
Another application of Davisian ideas in Britain was pro-
duced by Sidney Wooldridge (1900–63) and his former stu-
dent at King’s College, London, David Linton (1906–71), in
their studies of the structure, surface, and drainage of south-
east England. Wooldridge and Linton (1938) first presented a
post-Palaeozoic geological history of the region starting with
borehole information about the form of the Palaeozoic
basement, which was assumed to represent a warped pene-
plain, and provided data regarding the forms and thicknesses
of the overlying Mesozoic rocks. Likewise the pre-Eocene
topography was gauged by means of borehole evidence and
the study of outcrops and isopachytes. Seemingly it too was a
warped surface that was further deformed by late Cretaceous–
Paleocene earth movements, during which some Cretaceous
sediment was eroded to provide material for Eocene
deposition. Later, the outer ripples of Oligocene–Miocene
(Alpine) earth movements caused further folding in the
region. Wooldridge and Linton (1939, 1955) then expanded
their work to provide a ‘veritable chronology of denuda-
tion’ for the entire Cenozoic Era, including the late
Oligocene–Miocene interval for which an onshore sediment-
ary record is mostly lacking. As with observers elsewhere,
they sought accordant summits and base-leveled surfaces, now
uplifted and dissected, or exhumed. They proclaimed that the
(supposed) summit peneplain of southeast England of pre-
sumed Paleogene age provided ‘a major landmark’ – ‘a critical
point in time, the end of one cycle and the beginning of an-
other’ (Wooldridge and Linton, 1955: 37). They pointed out
how Davis (1895), visiting Britain in 1895, had attributed
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
supposed former planar surfaces to fluvial action rather than
marine planation favored by some earlier British workers.
Thus an attempt was made to integrate the Davisian geo-
morphic model with the stratigraphic and tectonic evidence
available in the region.
1.5.7.3 France
In France, Davis’s ideas were applied by Emmanuel de Mar-
tonne (1873–1955), Abel Briquet (1874–?), and Baulig
(1950), among others. De Martonne traveled with Davis to the
American West and Mexico in 1904, was appointed Prof. of
Geography at the Sorbonne in 1909, and welcomed Davis
there as a visiting Prof. in 1911–12. Briquet accompanied
Davis on his European ‘pilgrimage’ of 1911 (Chorley et al.,
1973). Baulig studied with Davis at Harvard from 1904 to
1907, and then became an instructor at George Washington
University. He returned to France in 1909 and was appointed
to the University of Rennes (where de Martonne had previ-
ously been Prof.) and then to the University of Strasbourg
in 1919. Baulig’s ‘Davisian’ doctoral dissertation, ‘Le plateau
central de la France,’ was published in 1928.
Briquet (1911), presumably influenced by Davis, had pos-
tulated the occurrence of four main cycles of erosion for the
Massif Central. The region’s decipherable geomorphic evolution
supposedly started with a peneplain on a Hercynian surface,
which was acted on by Alpine earth movements in the Miocene,
producing a planar surface (now an inclined peneplain) on
which lava flows were erupted. These were subsequently folded
into domes and basins, which initiated a new cycle of erosion. A
lowering of the Mediterranean Sea in the Lower Pliocene led to
incision of the Rhone valley and its tributaries, but a rise during
the Upper Pliocene flooded the valley and produced vast con-
glomerate beds. The topography of Cycle II was developed on
this surface, which supposedly proceeded to an ‘almost senile’
state. Further lavas were deposited onto this surface during the
Upper Pliocene. Further movements introduced Cycle III with
the rejuvenation of valleys. The most recent cycle was thought to
be most evident in the Rhone Valley. Briquet’s ideas were in part
beholden to Stille and he specifically mentioned some of the
short-lived orogenic phases named by him, such as the Rho-
danian at the end of the Miocene.
Baulig (1928, 1935) provided probably the most com-
prehensive geomorphological accounts of the Massif Central
during this period, dividing the evolution of the region as
follows: (1) pre-Hercynian phase; (2) Hercynian phase: folding,
erosion, and concomitant sedimentation; (3) post-Hercynian
phase: emergence and erosion (under arid conditions to a
planar surface); (4) submergence and marine sedimentation;
(5) general emergence and erosion at the end of the Secondary
(Mesozoic) and beginning of early Tertiary (Paleogene) erosion,
also under arid conditions; concomitant sedimentation; (6)
mid-Tertiary (Alpine) orogeny: dislocation accompanied by
local sedimentation; volcanism; and (7) continuation of con-
structive volcanic activity; continental erosion (fluvial and to a
certain extent glacial) (Baulig, 1928: 13). It is noteworthy that
the geological history defined here was written on the basis of
geomorphology, with the assistance of biostratigraphy, rather
than the other way round (Baulig, 1928: 47).
71
But Baulig went further and gave consideration to the causes
of the changes of the relative levels of land and sea. There could
be four kinds of causes in operation: (1) orogeny; (2) epeir-
ogeny Gilbert’s term (Gilbert, 1890: 340), for broad uplift or
subsidence produced by subterranean forces), (3) isostasy; and
(4) eustasy. In Central France only the Hercynian phase,
thought Baulig, could properly be called an orogeny. Epeiro-
genic movements could be part of the story, but isostasy could
largely be discounted as slow isostatic uplift would be largely
counterbalanced by erosion and would have different effects in
different regions since erosion processes are not the same
worldwide. Nevertheless, with intermittent falling of sea level,
distinct valleys could be cut at different levels onto a granitic
dome with a sedimentary cover (Baulig, 1928: 39–40;
Beckinsale and Chorley, 1991: Figure 10, 276). So a great deal of
emphasis was placed on eustasy, which was in keeping with
Suess’s doctrine that Davis had embraced. Baulig did not rely on
isolated observations but adopted a statistical approach to the
identification of elevated planar erosion surfaces. The history of
the relationship between diastrophism and geomorphology in
our period is discussed in Chorley (1963). Baulig (1935)
expounded his ideas to British audiences in lectures at
University College, London, in 1933. There, more cautiously, he
acknowledged that eustatic explanations could not be applied
with confidence to areas of unstable crust. Even so, while ac-
cepting that eustatic changes might have a variety of causes,
base-leveling might still be ascribed to changes in sea level. But
the confidence expressed in his 1928 thesis was now somewhat
tempered. Perhaps this was because, in reviewing Baulig’s book,
de Martonne (1929), although accepting the denudation
chronology, questioned the explanation based on eustasy.
1.5.7.4 China
Davis’s ideas also made their way to China, where consider-
able attention was given to the detection of planation surfaces.
Early on, the German explorer and geologist Ferdinand von
Richthofen (1833–1905) observed planation surfaces that he
interpreted as the product of marine denudation (Richthofen,
1882, translated in Mather and Mason, 1939: 512–517).
Americans familiar with China, such as Bailey Willis
(1857–1949) and George Barbour (1891–1977), observed
such surfaces in north China (Willis et al., 1907, Plate XXX;
Barbour, 1927) and made tentative attempts to make strati-
graphic correlations on the basis of erosion surfaces. Chinese
geologists sought correlations of erosion planes in the famous
karst topography of Guangdong Province in the south of the
country. Prominent among the Chinese Davisians were Z.X.
Zeng (1921–2007) and X.J. Cui (b. 1933) (see Zhang, 2008).
But Davis’s ideas eventually declined in China, as in the West,
and at much the same time.
1.5.8 German Opposition to Davisian Ideas: Walther
Penck’s Alternative
In fact, beyond Britain and New Zealand, Baulig’s explan-
ations of planation in terms of eustasy did not get very
far, even in Davisian America. The strongest opposition
72 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
(or disregard) came from the German-speaking part of Eur-
ope, where a substantially different geomorphic theory was
developed by Penck (1924), son of the distinguished Austrian
geologist Albrecht Penck (1858–1945). Subsequently, the
relative merits of the Davisian and Penckian theories became
one of the leading debates in geomorphology.
Until the Great War (1914–18), the Pencks were not ill-
disposed toward Davis’s ideas, but thereafter both father and
son began to develop ideas that were very different, and more
in line with Gilbert’s ‘engineering’ approach than Davis’s
‘evolutionary historicism.’ The Pencks visited the U.S. in
1908–09 and met American geomorphologists and geologists,
including Davis and Gilbert. Walther studied for a time at Yale,
later surveyed in the Andes, fought in the Great War, and be-
came a Prof. at Constantinople in 1915. Malaria forced his
return to Germany, where he became a Prof. at Leipzig. How-
ever, he was stricken with mouth cancer and died in 1923.
Walther Penck’s theoretical ideas in geomorphology were
based on his observations in the Andes (Penck, 1920) and the
Black Forest of southwest Germany (Penck, 1925), as well as
what he saw during his sojourn in Turkey. ‘Die morpholo-
gische Analyse,’ published posthumously in 1924 and without
final editing by the author, synthesized his ideas, but in no-
toriously difficult German. Nevertheless, developing criticisms
of Davis’s scheme by his father, it excited considerable interest
and parts of the book were soon translated into English, al-
though a full English translation did not appear until much
later (Penck, 1953).
Penck’s title should be noted. He sought a morphological,
not an historical analysis, of landforms so that in some ways
his ideas were more akin to those of Gilbert than Davis. His
starting-point was the idea – developed in conjunction with
his father (Penck, 1919) – that the similar heights of peak
ridges in the Alps represented an approximately level summit
plane (‘Gipfelflur’) produced by the cutting back of rock by
the processes of erosion. Also, Walther saw landforms as the
result of two opposing sets of forces: endogenic (produced
within the Earth) and exogenic (due to weathering and ero-
sion). Another basic Penckian idea was that of the ‘Primärr-
umpf’ (‘primary torso’ or ‘primary plain’). Davis had the idea
of a rapid elevation of land, followed by chiefly downward-
acting erosion, through stages, to a peneplain. Needless to say,
he was well aware that erosion could accompany the uplift,
but he tended to discount this – for didactic purposes at least.
By contrast, instead of postulating rapid elevation that out-
stripped erosion, Penck envisaged elevation accompanied by
erosion, so that an approximately level surface (Primärrumpf)
would eventually be produced. In this process, Penck pro-
posed three stages of development: ‘aufsteigende Entwicklung’
(increasing or waxing development, with accelerating uplift);
‘gleichförmige Entwicklung’ (uniform development); and
‘absteigende Entwicklung’ (declining or waning development,
with decelerating uplift).
During the first stage, where uplift outstrips erosion, convex-
up slopes are developed. For the second, uplift matches ero-
sion, straight-sided slopes are developed, and the effect of
erosion is lateral rather than downward. For the third phase,
where the base level is stable or rises only slowly so that it
cannot match the erosive processes, concave-up slopes develop.
The denudation of a valley side occurs by lateral erosion. The
upper valley slopes are steep (the areas of ‘Böschungen,’ scarps,
or gravity slopes) and maintain their angle with the parallel
retreat of the valley side due to erosion. The lower or basal
slopes (‘Haldenhangen’) underlying the loose talus have a
lesser declivity. Penck called the contacts between the two kinds
of slope ‘Knickpunkten,’ which were different in kind from the
nickpoints of Davis’s theory. For Davis, sudden changes in
slope occur at places where a stream encounters harder rock
and may be marked by a waterfall. For Penck, differences in
hardness were not essential for the formation of nickpoints, but
were produced as a concomitant of waxing development.
In his old age, Davis (1932) wrote a generally negative
review of Walther Penck’s ideas, concentrating in particular on
his work in the Black Forest. To a considerable extent,
Anglophone geologists formed their opinions of Penck’s work
via Davis’s exposition and critique. It later became apparent
that there were some mistranslations and misrepresentations
of Penck (see Simons, 1962), and some of the critiques of the
critique were also misleading. Davis summarized the differ-
ences between these models by means of a diagram (Figure 3),
which shows that Penck’s theory envisaged a parallel recession
of slopes and the production of a pointed inselberg, whereas
Davisian downwearing yielded a rounded hill.
Based on Penck’s theory, Davis also provided a represen-
tation of the topography of the Black Forest dome, with a
series of stepped benches (Figure 4). This figure highlights
a major difference between Davis and Penck. For Davis, such a
terraced topography would be the product of intermittent
uplift or the presence of harder rocks. For Penck, such a sur-
face could be produced by an accelerated and continuous
uplift without differences in rock hardness. Penck (1925:
89–90) maintained that when domal uplift begins erosion is
more active at lower altitudes where there is more water in the
streams, whose slopes are increased by uplift, so the lower
parts of valleys become deepened and convex nickpoints de-
velop between there and the higher parts of valleys. The levels
above the nickpoints then begin to serve as base levels for the
upper-valley reaches. In time, nickpoints move upstream but,
with ongoing upheaval, they are elevated, and a process
analogous to the first begins. So ‘‘[c]ontinuous acceleration of
upheaval leaves in the long profile of the stream one convex
nick after the other, all move up-valley, below each one there
begins a narrow, steep course reach with convex valley slopes,
above each there is a broader reach with concave slope pro-
files’’ (translation from Simons, 1962: 11).
A major difference between Davis and Penck was that the
latter believed in the more or less parallel retreat of slopes
(Figure 5), and this difference has commonly been accepted.
However, Simons has argued that, for Penck, ‘‘there is a strict
proportionality between slope angle and rate of denudation’’
Figure 3 ‘Profiles of a widening valley.’ Davis’s (1932: 409)
comparison of his theory of the development of slopes (right) with
that of Penck (left). Redrawn with permission from Davis, W.M.,
1932. Piedmont benchlands and Primärrümpfe. Geological Society of
America, Bulletin 43, 399–440.
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 73

Figure 4 Davis’s (1932: 401) representation of benches (I-VI) on a landform (e.g., in the Black Forest) produced by a rising dome, after being
subjected to erosion; according to his interpretation of Penck (1925). Redrawn from Penck, W., 1925. Die Piedmontflächen des südlichen
Schwarzwaldes. Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, 82–108, with permission from Wikipedia.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 21

5
34

F
a1
J1

b
5
x y F
a1

l
Figure 5 Successive stages of the erosion of a slope. Redrawn from Penck, W., 1953. Morphological Analysis of Landforms: A Contribution to
Physical Geology, translated by H. Czech, K.C. Boswell, Macmillan, London, 429 pp. (Reprinted Hafner New York, 1972).

in consequence of which the recessions do not proceed by the
successive removal of exactly ‘parallel slices’ of valley-side
rock. Nevertheless, this was Penck’s view to a first approxi-
mation, as shown by the diagrams by which he illustrated his
ideas. Figure 5 shows Penck’s representation of waning de-
velopment involving the removal of successive layers of a
valley side that consists of different rock types (a soft; b hard).
The valley gradually acquires fragmented material in its lower
part, with a lesser slope-angle than the upper parts, forming
the Haldenhang. This part expands over time at the expense of
the rock of the Böschung. However, the Haldenhang is itself
gradually eroded away in ‘slices’ until, over 34 time-incre-
ments of erosion, a valley is eventually formed with a concave
cross-profile. For Penck it is the upper layers that suffer erosion
first and most, whereas for Davis erosion proceeds chiefly by
the action of rivers along their valley floors.
Penck called the final stage of denudation the ‘Endrumpf,’
which seems to have been much the same as Davis’s pene-
plain. If a Penckian cycle is repeated, the Endrumpf is re-
instated as a Primärrumpf; so one had two names for much
the same kind of landform. The model was again cyclic in
practice (though not in name), and Davis later complained,
with some justification, that he couldn’t see any substantial
difference between an Endrumpf and a peneplain.
Despite the similarities in outcome, the Davisian and
Penckian models had basic differences. For Davis, relatively
rapid uplift was followed by distinguishable stages of down-
ward denudation. For Penck, there was a slow uplift (waxing,
steady, then waning), all the while counteracted by the forces
of erosion. Interestingly, though Davis (1932) subjected
Penck’s ideas to vigorous critique, Davis’s (1905b) own
account of denudation in arid lands was quite Penckian.
1.5.9 Germany and America: Differences of Opinion
It is a nice question whether the two theories did or did not
constitute two different paradigms. Walther Penck’s ideas grew
from his early observations in the Andes, Black Forest, and
Alps, whereas Davis’s ideas grew from his work in the Appa-
lachians and New England. After some enthusiasm at the
beginning of the century (Beckinsale, 1976; Chorley et al.,
1973), Penck’s ideas became part of a developing German
resistance to Davisian notions, notably found in the work of
Passarge (1919–20), Prof. at Breslau and then Hamburg, and
Alfred Hettner (1859–1941), Prof. at Heidelberg. Hettner
published several articles critical of Davis’s ideas in his journal
Geographische Zeitschrift (Leipzig) and gathered the materials
together in his ‘Die Oberflächenformen des Festlands’
(Hettner, 1921, 1972), which was highly critical of Davis’s
views. Machatschek (1938–40), a former student of Albrecht
Penck who held chairs in Prague, Zurich, and Vienna, gave a
74 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
more favorable account of Davis’s ideas, but pointed out dif-
ficulties and did not accept his doctrines as a whole. The works
of Passarge and Hettner received savage reviews by Davis
(1923a, 1923b), Hettner’s book being described (1923b,
p. 318) as being characterized by ‘homilies, truisms, hesi-
tations, obstructive misunderstandings, and disputatious
objections’! There is little doubt that the American and
German geomorphological communities were moving apart at
that time, in part, one may suppose, because of the catas-
trophe of the Great War.
But the differences were also shaped by the protagonists’
dissimilar interests, particularly the importance of the pro-
cesses that occur during denudation, rather than the general
evolution of landforms. Also the development of landforms in
different climatic regions, especially in areas of Africa that
Germany had briefly colonized, was of special interest to the
German community. A conference in Düsseldorf in 1926 fo-
cused on climatic geomorphology rather than denudation
chronologies, and gave particular attention to processes in
humid tropical environments (Beckinsale and Chorley, 1991)
and this work was carried further by the likes of Karl Sapper
(1866–1945) of the University of Würzburg, who worked in
Central America (Sapper, 1935). German scholars, such as
Passarge, also showed much interest in the classification of
different types of landforms (Beckinsale and Chorley, 1991).
The differences between Davisian and Penckian theory
stimulated the Americans and in 1939 a conference on the
issues was organized in Chicago, by Oscar von Engeln
(1896–1964) of Cornell University. He sought to evaluate the
differences between the two sets of views and several re-
spondents had their papers published in the Annals of the
Association of American Geographers the following year. As
perhaps might be expected, opinion favored the Davisian
position. One test case focused on the way in which erosion
proceeded, a challenge accepted by Harvard geologist Kirk
Bryan (1888–1950). Bryan (1940) focused on Penck’s
‘absteigende Entwicklung,’ for which he envisaged the parallel
retreat of slopes whereas Davis thought that erosion worked
downward as well as backward, yielding, as time passed, a
curved surface of gradually diminishing relief. Bryan ac-
knowledged that something like a Penckian retreat occurred in
arid regions. And Sapper (1935) had shown that there could
also be parallel retreat in humid tropical regions, where
mudflows and landslides were commonplace. The Chicago
meeting rejected Penck’s distinction between Primärrümpfe
and Endrümpfe, maintaining that they were essentially the
same as Davis’s peneplain; and regarded Penck’s theory as
being, in essence, as cyclic as that of Davis. But there had been
a two-way traffic of ideas in that, in lectures delivered at the
universities of Texas and California in 1927 and 1929, re-
spectively, and published posthumously, Davis did acknow-
ledge the possibility of valley erosion occurring while uplift is
still in progress (King and Schumm, 1980), but he did not
pursue the implications.
1.5.10 Lester King in Africa: Davis Rewritten
Davis’s ideas were also applied in some degree to southern
Africa by Lester Charles King (1907–89), Prof. of Geology at
the University of Natal. King was born in London but mi-
grated to New Zealand, where he studied under Cotton in
Wellington, and briefly became his assistant before moving to
Africa in 1934. In Africa, he traveled over vast tracts of country
and published voluminously (e.g., King, 1951, 1962). King
could build on Davis’s observations in South Africa (Davis,
1906b) and, like Davis, he adopted a cyclic theory of erosion.
However, the African landscape led him to reject the notion of
peneplain in favor of pediplain, a term proposed by Maxson
and Anderson (1935) as an extension of the pediment concept
earlier recognized in the American West (e.g., Gilbert, 1877).
King supposed that gently sloping rock pediments, thinly
veneered with alluvial waste, were smoothed by water running
over them like sheets, without forming perennial channels.
Many coalescing pediments together form a pediplain. So a
pediplain has a multi-concave surface, instead of the multi-
convex surfaces of Davis’s peneplains. But in addition to dif-
ferences in form, the two surfaces would have quite different
origins. King (1953) thought that the pediplains that he in-
vestigated in Africa were analogues of Penck’s Endrumpfe. Any
convexities were indications of the beginning of a new cycle of
erosion. He also claimed that he had never seen a peneplain!
King included a remarkable Erosion-Cycle Map in his
South African Scenery (1951), which sought to delineate the
boundaries of six cycles of erosion: (1) the upwarped portions
of Gondwana; (2) the Gondwana landscape above the ‘Great
Escarpment’ (which separates the coastal lowlands from the
high interior plateaus); (3) the Gondwana landscape in the
marginal regions; (4) the landscape of the multiphase ‘African’
cycle; (5) the ‘Victoria Falls’ cycle; and (6) the multiphase
‘Congo’ cycle.
King also applied his ideas elsewhere, for example, to
Australia (King, 1950) where he identified four groups of
landscapes: (1) ancient landscapes (Gondwana) older than
the present configuration of the continent; (2) laterite-capped
landscapes of the ‘Australian pediplain’ that, he thought,
formed between Cretaceous through Paleogene time; (3) more
varied landscapes initiated in the Miocene, some of which led
to extensive planation, destroying much of the Australian
pediplain; and (4) a series of local cyclic landscapes and
phases subsequent to the (supposed) Kosciusko earth move-
ments. Remarkably, he seems to have built this model mostly
from his reading of maps, books, and papers, as he discussed
many places in Australia that he could never have had
the opportunity to visit. The same was true ‘a fortiori’ in
his ‘magnum opus’ (King, 1962), which offered a global ac-
count of the Earth’s geomorphic history. The extent of
King’s reading is truly mind-boggling! As a Southern Hemi-
sphere geologist, King envisaged the earlier connections of
Australia, South Africa, and South America in the ancient
continent of Gondwana (though he did not originate this
idea). Figure 6 conveniently summarizes the differing theories
of landform development of Davis, Penck, and King (Thornes
and Brunsden, 1977).
Although King was obviously strongly influenced by Davis
and Cotton and retained their cyclic ideas, in the matter of the
Davisian/Penckian debate he sided with the Pencks. This was
perhaps due to the kinds of scenery he encountered in Africa.
Be that as it may, King’s work marked the beginning of the end
for the Davisian paradigm, which had dominated the field for
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 75

Time
of Youth Maturity Old age many times as long as youth and maturity
uplift
Altitude

No further uplit Convex-concave valley side slopes

Altitude
ift
of highe
upl

st divide Flood plain development

s
pid

Alt Peneplain
Ra

itu
de o
f main valley
Base level floors

(a) Time

Aulsteigende Gleichformige Absteigende entwickelung

entwickelung entwickelung

No further uplit Gravity slope ‘böschung’

Altitude of hig
Altitude

hest div Wash slope ‘haidenhang’

ides
Endrumpf
Inselberg
ft

Sl
op
li

e for m
Up

Altitude of main valley floors

Base level
(b)
Time

Valley deepening to obtain

maximum relief Concave slopes produced by parallel
retreat of ‘inclined flats’
Altitude

Altitude
of highe
s t divide
s
Endrumpf
lift
Up

Altitude of main valleys

Base level
(c)
Time

Youth Maturity Old age?

Incision ceases
max relief
pediplain
altained ‘Constant’ Convex
ge
sm up y

Initial surface may

al lift
ve rm all

stable slope Relief and slope decline

ta

crest Scarp
Altitude

no further
ha ifo ner

ls

uplift forms produced remain to late stage at last stage only

ay un Ge

Altitude of highest divides Debris slope

Retreat Lateral Parallel
Pediment Final form Biconcave
corrasion retreat
m

Altitude of main valleys

Base level

(d) Time
Figure 6 The theories of Davis, Penck, and King. (a) Reproduced from Davis, W.M., 1899a. The geographical cycle. Geographical Journal 14,
481–504, 255, with permission from Wiley (b) Penck, as incorrectly interpreted by von Engeln (1942); (c) Penck (1954); (d) King (generalized).

well over fifty years. Davis’s work was essentially literary, art-
istic, and qualitative, and not in keeping with the changing
direction of geoscience in the mid-twentieth century, as is
revealed in an ungenerous assessment by Strahler (1952) of
Columbia University:
Davis’ treatment y was completely qualitative. I do not recall
having seen a measurement of slope angle or a precisely measured
slope profile in any of his publications. Neither is there any
penetrating analysis of erosional processes based on mechanics
of fluids or plastic materials, although his deductions seem to show
an intuitive grasp of the dynamics. Davis’ treatment appealed y
to persons who have had little training in basic physical
sciences, but who like scenery and outdoor life. As a cultural pur-
suit, Davis’ method is excellent: as a part of the basis for the
understanding of human geography it is entirely adequate. As a
branch of natural science it seems superficial and inadequate
(Strahler, 1950: 209).
76 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
1.5.11 Periglacial Geomorphology
The idea of a former glacial epoch or epochs was established
in the nineteenth century (Agassiz, 1840) and efforts were
made, for example, by Croll (1875) in 1875, to account for the
recurrence of ice ages in terms of astronomical theory. Interest
in glaciers and cold-climate phenomena was further stimu-
lated by contemporary explorations to Arctic regions and
Antarctica. Although permafrost had long been known in
Russia, and North American scientists were describing cold-
climate features in the nineteenth century, periglacial geo-
morphology as a systemic study only began after 1900. It was
not a field that attracted W.M. Davis’s attention. Then, at the
International Geological Congress at Stockholm in 1910 and
the following field excursion to Spitzbergen, the Polish
geologist Walery von Łozinski (1880–1943) of the Jagellonian
University, Krakow, suggested that cold-climate regions not
permanently covered by snow or ice had a distinctive char-
acter, with extensive blockfields of coarse angular rock debris,
giving rise to what he called a ‘periglacial facies’ (Łozinski,
1912). He had examined these in the Carpathian Mountains
and elsewhere and supposed that the coarse debris was the
product of rock splitting under arid conditions of great cold
and strong wind, such as occurred more generally during the
Pleistocene and persists today in mountainous regions below
the permanent snowline. He attributed rock splitting in the
Carpathians to strong diurnal temperature changes. Though
applied to tundra regions by the Stockholm excursionists,
Łozinski’s ideas were not initially developed for high latitudes,
where rock fracturing is not produced by daily temperature
changes and his periglacial facies was not necessarily charac-
teristic of all sub-Arctic periglacial environments, and today
this facies is thought to occur only in Antarctica and northeast
Greenland (French, 2000).
Periglacial studies progressed during the early twentieth
century, notably from the work of Scandinavian, Russian,
Canadian, and American scientists working mostly in Arctic
and sub-Arctic lands. For example, based on work in remote
Bear Island and the Falklands, the term ‘solifluction’ was
coined in 1906 by the Swedish geographer Andersson (1906)
for the downslope mass flowage of frost-riven debris within a
meltwater sludge. In 1929, Taber (1929) of the University of
South Carolina showed that frost heaving was due to the
subsurface growth of ice crystals, not to an overall change of
volume, and that crystal growth followed the upward path of
least resistance. During World War II, the strategic importance
of cold regions led military and civilian engineers to seek a
better understanding of permafrost terrains, especially for road
and airfield construction; these interests increased across the
subpolar regions of the Northern Hemisphere during the en-
suing Cold War. Periglacial environments, with permafrost
overlain by an ‘active layer’ frozen in winter but not in sum-
mer, can give rise to a host of surface forms, ranging from
pingos to patterned ground of low relief, where material
is sorted according to size. By the mid-twentieth century,
many explanations had been proposed for these forms and
structures. However, when various hypotheses were reviewed
in 1956 by Washburn (1956), Director of the Arctic Institute
of North America, he concluded at the time that the features
had multiple origins and could offer no unifying explanation
for their formation. They structures of low relief could con-
tribute to cryoplanation if developed on inclined surfaces.
Meanwhile, Kirk Bryan (1946) introduced new terminology,
such as ‘congelifraction’ for frost splitting, ‘congeliturbation’ for
frost churning, and ‘cryoplanation’ for landscapes of low relief
seemingly produced by intense frost action and related cold-
region processes. Bryan (1946: 639) distinguished between ‘‘an
area [that] is or has been subject to the Cycle of Cryoplanation
[and] areas subject to the Pluvial-fluvial Cycle.’’ Thus a door was
opened for Davisian principles to gain a foothold in the Arctic,
notably by Carl Troll (1899–1975), Prof. of Geography at
Bonn, and Louis Peltier (1916–2003) of Washington University
(Troll, 1948; Peltier, 1950). Peltier’s periglacial cycle explicitly
compared cryoplanation to peneplanation (Figure 7). How-
ever, whereas Davisian stages might be invoked for planation
processes in cold conditions, cyclic periglaciation would likely
reflect climate change rather than sequential uplift. Thus the
Davisian scheme was unhelpful. It was almost the last throw of
the dice for Davisian geomorphology.
1.5.12 The Beginnings of Quantitative and
Experimental Geomorphology
Despite the dominance of Davisian principles during the early
twentieth century, a more quantitative and experimental geo-
morphology was beginning to emerge, notably from the work
of Gilbert (1914, 1917). Looking at a stream tumbling down a
mountainside, it is by no means obvious how one might begin
to analyze its nature, either mathematically or empirically.
What Gilbert did was to approach such problems with the
mind of an engineer, not an evolutionary historian. Gilbert
entertained the idea of graded rivers in which there is a bal-
ance between force and resistance in a stream channel. If a
river changes in some way, such as a change in discharge or
sediment load, the channel form will respond until balance
is restored. If one constructed artificial channels (flumes) for
studying water flows and sediment movement, then such
parameters might be varied systematically and one might be
able to make empirical generalizations, and perhaps express
them mathematically. And this is what Gilbert did at the
University of California, Berkeley, in 1907–09. To study grade,
he dropped sand at a uniform rate into flowing water at the
upper end of a flume and collected it at the lower end. It
gradually formed a sloping surface down the flume and a state
of equilibrium was reached when the rate of sand escaping at
the outfall equaled the rate on input. He had thus created
artificially a graded system. Channel, sediment, and water
parameters could then be varied to see what changes followed.
The behavior of the particles was observed through glass
panels at the side of the flumes. He found that streams adjust
their profiles according to the supply of debris they carry. But
in a natural stream several factors may be changing simul-
taneously. Numerous data were published on the capacity for
stream traction based on variations in discharge, sediment
size, and channel slope and width (Gilbert, 1914). These
flume studies (which Gilbert acknowledged could not be
extrapolated directly to ‘real’ streams) were accompanied by
practical investigations of the movement of gold-mining
debris being discharged into the Sacramento River system.
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
Initial
stage
(a)
Undissected surface
Youth Isolated remnants
Small surface of
cryoplanation
Sea level
(b)
Initial surface remnants small
or absent
Maturity Congeliturbate
Surace of lateral
planation
Sea level
(c)
Congelifractate-covered
Surface of downwastage;
Old age of lateral planation
Sea level
(d)
Figure 7 The periglacial cycle of erosion. Reproduced from Peltier, L.C., 1950. The geographical cycle in periglacial regions as it is related to
climatic geomorphology. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 40, 214–316, with permission from AAAG.
Gilbert constructed stream gauges in the Sacramento Valley
and concluded that the movement of a large body of debris
was analogous to the downstream movement of a great body
of stormwater (Gilbert, 1917). He also predicted that the ad-
verse geohydrologic effects of mining would be worked out of
the system in a century – which has not proved to be the case.
Gilbert did not have the apparatus to enable him to treat
stream slope as an independent variable, but Joseph Hoover
Mackin (1905–68), of the universities of Washington and later
Texas, concluded that streams adjust themselves to the onset
of new conditions primarily by modifications of channel slope
rather than channel cross-section (Mackin, 1948, p. 508). He
saw the whole process of stream adjustment as being in
accordance with Le Châtelier’s principle.
Meanwhile, geographer John Leighly (1895–1986) of the
University of California, Berkeley, a polymath with interests in
meteorology, climatology, and hydrology, addressed stream
turbulence. He emphasized that there were many differences in
the movement of water in different parts of a stream: near the
banks, near the bottom, near the surface, and so on. These could
be investigated empirically, analyzed mathematically, and rep-
resented graphically so that the simple picture imagined earlier
by Gilbert needed modification. Leighly (1932) published cross-
sections (Figure 8) showing ‘isarithms,’ or surfaces of equal
velocity, in a stream. Each of these had a line drawn per-
pendicular to it, which were extrapolated to meet at the point of
maximum stream velocity. The shear force exerted by each
prismoid of water was calculated as the product of the turbulent
77
Jagged, frost-riven cliffs
Extensive surfaces of
cryoplanation with
20°−30° slopes
Extensive surfaces of
cryoplanation with
slopes less than 5°
exchange through the surface and the velocity gradient across
the surface, allowing turbulence to be calculated for each pris-
moid. Hence the turbulence in different parts of the stream
could be related to the concentration profile of the suspended
sediment. Figure 8b shows rates of water flow in different parts
of the stream and the forces exerted on the stream bed by
moving water. This was also done for streams of different forms.
Leighly (1934) then examined the effects of water turbu-
lence on the corrasion of stream banks produced by the
movement of water (not by the action of suspended sedi-
ment). As he put it: ‘‘turbulence is responsible for the main-
tenance of mineral fragments in suspension in water’’ – a
point ignored by Gilbert. He was able to calculate the so-called
‘Austausch coefficient’ (A) at different heights in a column of
moving water from the equation sz ¼ so  ecz/A, where
so ¼ turbidity at the base of a column of fluid, sz ¼ turbidity at
height z, c¼ the rate of fall of suspended particles in non-
turbulent fluid, and e ¼ the base of natural logarithms. The
quantity A (turbulent transfer coefficient) is a measure of
turbulent mixing, being the product of the mass of water and
sediment passing through a unit area parallel to the direction
of flow in unit time and the distance traveled. From sampling
the suspended sediment in a river at different depths Leighly
was able to gauge the intensity of turbulence at the depths
where the sediment was sampled and offered diagrammatic
estimations of the degree of turbulence in different parts of a
stream (Figure 9). Here the arrows represent the diffusion of
suspended matter, and one can see how movement of
78 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

1 0 1 2 3 4 5 Meters

12

11

10

0.9
0.8
0.7
J = 0.000057
gJ = 0.05186 cm s−2

(a)

40 50
30 20
20 10
10
10
10

20
20 30

40

0 5 10 dynes
(b)

Figure 8 Diagrams from Leighly (1932: 7) showing in cross section: (a) the isarithms of cells of water flowing in a stream (at a power plant on
the Adige), with a thread of water moving with maximum velocity at the top center and with slower and less irregular movements near the
surface, the sides, and the bottom; (b) contours of equal rates of flow with lines drawn at right angles to the stream-floor having lengths
proportional to the forces exerted by the stream on its bed at different points. Reproduced from Leighley, J.B., 1934. Turbulence and the
transport of rock debris in streams. Geographical Review 24, 453–464, with permission from Wiley.

sediment would be different for straight reaches (left) and in
stream bends (right). Thus scientific work in fluid mechanics,
relevant to geomorphology, developed empirically and theo-
retically in our period and was applied to engineering prob-
lems and the analysis of artificial and natural water flows. It
also began to influence ideas about erosion and deposition,
even during the supremacy of historical and qualitative
Davisian geomorphology.
During this period, the Swedish scientist Filip Hjulström
(1902–82) of Uppsala University studied erosion and sedi-
ment transport in the Fyris River, central Sweden, for his
doctorate. He differed from Gilbert in supposing that river
water itself could be an important agent of erosion without
regard to its sediment load. Additionally, Hjulström studied
water velocity and suspended sediment transport in flumes at
the Hydraulic Laboratory of the Royal Technical High School
in Stockholm. His thesis (Hjulström, 1935) presented a
graphical plot of water velocities against particle sizes and
displayed the conditions under which a river would erode,
transport, or deposit sediment (Figure 10). It is evident that
there is a critical mean velocity for sediment transport. The
minimum value for the water velocity, evident at the center of
the graph (now known as the Hjulström Curve’), had not been
identified by earlier investigators.
William Walden Rubey (1898–1974) of the USGS and later
the University of California, Los Angeles, also studied sediment
entrainment, specifically the forces required to move particles
from a stream bed. Rubey (1938) adopted a Gilbertian ap-
proach with a consideration of forces not histories, and fed
Gilbert’s data into his equations. An earlier formula, adopted
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 79

Lateral regions of low velocity and low intensity of turbulence

Flanking regions of intense
turbulence and moderate velocity
Axial region
of high velocity
III II I II III III II I II III
Maximum Maximum
velocity velocity
Max
imu
m
ce nce
Max
ulen bule
imum
Tur
b Tur

(a) (b) GEOCA. REVIEW, JULY, 1934

Figure 9 Cross-profiles of the different parts of streams of: (a) symmetrical form and (b) asymmetrical form, showing differences in turbulence.
Reproduced from Leighley, J.B., 1934. Turbulence and the transport of rock debris in streams. Geographical Review 24, 453–464, with
Permission from Wiley.

1000

500
300 Erosion
200
100
50
Velocity (cm s−1)

30
20

10 n
atio
s port
5 Tran
3
2
Sedimentation
1

0.5
0.3
0.2

0.1
0.001

0.002
0.003
0.005
0.01

0.02
0.03
0.05

0.1
0.2
0.3
0.5

2
3
5

10
20
30
50

100
200
300
500

Size of particles (mm)

Figure 10 Plot of water velocity vs. particle size. Reproduced from Hjulström, F., 1935. Studies of the morphological activity of rivers as
illustrated by the River Ferris: inaugural dissertation. Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri, Uppsala (Geological Institute of Uppsala), Bulletin 25,
221–527, with permission from Geological Institute of Uppsala.

by Gilbert, stated that the weight of the largest particles moved
by a stream varies according to the sixth power of the stream
velocity. But this was not useful for practical purposes since a
stream’s velocity varies substantially across its cross-section.
What was required was knowledge of the velocity close to the
stream bed; but that was hard to determine. Rubey was con-
cerned with stream competence – that is a stream’s ability to
transport particles of different size. He was interested in finding
whether: (1) the sixth-power law; (2) critical tractive force; or
(3) hydraulic lift best accounted for Gilbert’s data. It seemed
that neither (1) nor (2) fitted the observations satisfactorily
and that some kind of compromise between the two was re-
quired. The sixth-power law apparently worked quite well for
coarse particles, but higher velocities than those indicated by
that law were needed to set small particles in motion. Seem-
ingly the velocity of the thin layer of water adjacent to a stream
bed, not the turbulent layers above, was what mattered. This
stream-bed velocity could not be measured directly but could
be calculated using the empirical data obtained from the flow
of water in rough pipes. And departures from the sixth-power
law became significant when the laminar film was thicker than
the radius of the particles being moved, suggesting that
hydraulic lift was the force that starts the movement of small
particles, not the direct impact of water. Since the movement of
particles was an indication of the character of the stream doing
the moving, Rubey suggested that it might, in principle, be
possible to gauge the size and regimen of streams that had laid
down particular deposits in the geologic past.
80 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
The above examples served as a springboard for a more
quantitative and process-oriented geomorphology during the
second half of the twentieth century (see Sack, Chapter 1.6
and McDowell, Chapter 1.7; and Clifford, 2008).
1.5.13 Stream Patterns and Drainage Development
Other quantitative studies developed in our period through
the study of stream patterns. John Playfair (1802: 102)
had pointed out that river systems have a main trunk, with
branches and valleys of proportional size. In the twentieth
century, the question became whether any kind of math-
ematical laws could be discovered representing drainage pat-
terns. In 1914, Gravelius (1914) of the Technical Institute at
Dresden addressed this question by introducing the concept of
stream orders. He referred to the major stream in a drainage
system as being of first order; the first tributary as second
order; and so on back to the fingertip tributaries. This system
prevailed in Europe for a considerable time but it was reversed
by the USGS hydrologist Horton (1875–1945) in 1945.
Horton designated unbranched fingertip streams as first
order, with two first-order streams combining to produce a
second-order stream and so on, and when orders are assigned
throughout a basin, extended highest order stream back to
define the mainstream from source to outlet.
Horton’s scheme was influential because it allowed gener-
alizations to be discerned for stream networks and drainage
basins. For example, the drainage density of a basin was de-
fined as the total length of streams/rivers in a basin (L) divided
by the area (D¼ SL/A). Stream frequency was given by N/A,
where N was the total number of streams in a drainage basin
of area A. Plotting log N against values of the stream orders
in a basin gave approximately parallel straight-line graphs for
different basins, as did plots of log L against N. Plots of log
slope (S) against stream orders likewise gave straight-line
graphs – different, but approximately parallel, for different
basins. The number of streams of a given order in a basin was
given by N0 ¼ rb(so), where s¼ slope and o ¼ order. In short,
graphical analyses suggested mathematical patterns in the
apparently ‘disorderly’ disposition of streams.
In 1952, Strahler (1952) abandoned Horton’s concept of
reordering a mainstream back to its source, thereby limiting the
highest order stream to that resulting from the confluence of
two streams of the previously highest order. Strahler’s slight
modifications were more mathematically flexible and came to
be widely adopted. Later authors such as Shreve (1966) of the
University of California, Los Angeles offered further systems.
Collectively, these stream-ordering schemes are commonly
viewed as a foundation for quantitative geomorphology because
they used mathematical constructs, such as stream order, stream
length, basin area, and drainage density, to define the properties
of drainage basins. For a while, much attention was given to the
statistical and graphical relationships that these parameters re-
vealed. However, the so-called ‘laws’ were revealed by Shreve to
be statistical artifacts. In essence, stream ordering was arbitrary,
so different schemes yielded different generalizations.
Horton’s work on stream orders were but part of his
wider attempt, as a hydraulic engineer, to understand and
synthesize the nature and progress of drainage systems. In
1933, from work on rainfall infiltration, he developed the
so-called Horton (1933) Equation: ft ¼ fc þ (f0  fc)eKt, where
ft ¼ infiltration rate at time t; f0 ¼ the initial infiltration rate
(or maximum infiltration rate); fc ¼ the constant or equi-
librium infiltration rate after the soil has been saturated (or
minimum infiltration rate); and K¼a decay constant specific
to the soil concerned. Horton thought of the soil surface as a
dividing sieve, which separated rain into the part that soaked
into the ground and that which ran off into streams. From
comprehensive studies of interception, evaporation, infil-
tration, transpiration, overland flow, and runoff, he developed
a ‘hydrophysical approach to quantitative morphology’ (the
subtitle of his classic 1945 paper), which showed among other
things how different drainage patterns might arise on different
surfaces. Horton disapproved of the term peneplain, and
suggested ‘base surface’ in its stead. Moreover, he offered a
corrective to Davis’s assumptions about the earliest stages of
erosion on newly uplifted surfaces. He pointed out that in-
cipient drainage and low drainage density may normally be
taken to imply a youthful landscape. But an area of ‘erosion-
ally mature’ topography may be produced if the infiltration
capacity, initial slope and resistance, and rainfall are not such
as to produce significant erosion on the surface. In other
words, the extent of dissection is not a good criterion of
geomorphic age. His hydrophysical approach established ‘ra-
tional quantitative relationships between the interpretation of
observed phenomena accurately and with confidence in the
correctness of the results’ – which Davis’s concept failed to do
(Horton, 1945: 367). In this way, Horton provided another
foundation for a quantitative geomorphology.
1.5.14 Landforms Produced by Etching
In the erosion processes considered thus far, attention has fo-
cused on mechanical agents such as water, ice, and wind,
though weathering normally precedes erosion. But weathering
is no simple process: it involves mechanical processes such as
those due to frost and temperature changes and the chemical
reactions of air and water on rocks and their minerals, assisted
by the agencies of plants and soil organisms. Nor is it confined
to rocks at or near the surface. Several eighteenth-century
authors noted that the forms of granitic boulders were not
easily explained by visible processes and it was later suggested
that ‘core-stones’ were produced by weathering processes oc-
curring along joints. Twentieth-century observations, especially
in Africa and Australia, where inselbergs and bornhardts
(similar entities named after the German explorer of Tanga-
nyika, Wilhelm Bornhardt, 1864–1946) are prominent, sug-
gested a substantially different process. In 1911, the Falconer
(1911) reported bare rock slopes and remnants of sheet struc-
tures situated on the otherwise featureless plains of northern
Nigeria. He thought that they originated in two stages, re-
marking that if the overlying unconsolidated material were re-
moved there would be loose boulders on a smooth rock
surface. He envisaged, first, uneven subsurface weathering that
left ‘kernels’ and then, second, the stripping away of the wea-
thered material. Shortly afterward, John Jutson (1874–1959), of
the State Survey in Western Australia, made analogous obser-
vations and offered a similar explanation (Jutson, 1914). The
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
A A
B twentieth century, later spurred by the Dust Bowl event of the
B American Great Plains in the 1930s. This catastrophe led to
(a)
A A
B culture. Many wind-tunnel studies were conducted and a
B Wind Erosion Equation was proposed by William Chepil
(b)
A A
B B
(c)
Figure 11 The formation of tors, according to D.L. Linton (1955): (a)
jointed rock; (b) subsurface weathering in jointed rock; (c) residual
material after erosion of weathered rock. Reproduced from Linton,
D.L., 1955. The problem of tors. Geographical Journal 121, 470–487,
with permission from Wiley-Blackwell.
idea reemerged in Africa in the 1930s with the work of Bailey
Willis and E. James Wayland (1888–1966), Director of the
Ugandan Geological Survey. Willis suggested the word ‘etch’
for subsurface weathering at the base of the regolith and
Wayland (1933: 79) put the idea into print. Then Linton
(1955) applied the idea to explain the origin of English tors
on Dartmoor and the Pennines (Figure 11). Linton’s model
stressed the importance of deep weathering rather than direct
dependence on stream erosion.
The concept of two-stage erosion or double planation
(doppelten Einebnugsflächen) was advanced in 1957 by Büdel
(1961), Prof. of Geography at the University of Würtzburg. He
explained how plains might be depositional surfaces outside
the tropics but erosional surfaces within the tropics, where
double planation could readily occur, accompanied by the
formation of wash-surfaces. In Europe, Büdel pointed to cases
where homogenous rock undergoing intermittent uplift had
produced stepped benches of (mountain)-rim-wash-pedi-
ments, with surface lowering or weathering caused by etching.
His ideas offered a via media between the ideas of Davis and
those of Walther Penck. Jack Mabbutt (1922–2008) (Mabbutt,
1961), Prof. of Geography at the University of New South
Wales, proposed the term ‘weathering front’ for the interface of
fresh and weathered rock, which worked its way downward as
etching proceeded. A history of this concept has been pro-
vided by Twidale (2002).
1.5.15 The Movement of Sand and Soil by Wind:
Bagnold’s Investigations
Aeolian geomorphology traces its origins to nineteenth-
century European reports of arid-land features in Asia and
Africa, in which Davis showing only passing interest. But these
81
early observations were mostly descriptive, and offered little
insight into the processes involved. However, a more quanti-
tative approach began to develop during the first half of the
numerous studies on wind erosion, aeolian dust, and their
economic implications, for example, in the Wind Erosion
Project initiated at Kansas State University in 1947 and in
other studies sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agri-
(1904–47) and his colleagues that took account of soil erod-
ibility, wind energy and direction, soil-surface roughness,
sheltering effects, and vegetation cover.
The above research, of much practical value to agriculture,
followed in large measure on the initiative shown in the
interwar period by Ralph Alger Bagnold (1896–1990), de-
scribed by Goudie (2008: 787) as ‘bestrid(ing) twentieth-
century aeolian studies like a colossus.’ Bagnold was a British
army officer who fought in both world wars, studied engin-
eering at Cambridge after the Great War and spent some of the
interwar years in the Middle East and India. He gained much
field experience in the deserts of Egypt and Libya, successfully
conducting ‘impossible’ journeys in early model-A Ford cars
(Bagnold, 1930). But having being invalided out of the army
due to an illness he was appointed to Imperial College,
London, where he conducted wind-tunnel experiments on
sand and developed models for aeolian transport.
Bagnold was interested in the physics of sand grains being
entrained and transported by wind and the processes whereby
ripples, dunes, barchans, and seifs were formed. To investigate
these phenomena experimentally, he constructed a wind tunnel
with a fan at one end to drive sand grains down the tunnel, the
fan being able to create varied wind speeds. Pressure differences
within the tunnel could be ascertained at different heights
above its floor by a specially designed manometer. The tunnel,
with its glass sides, was strongly illuminated so that the moving
sand-grains could be observed and photographed (Bagnold,
1936). From his laboratory studies and theoretical consider-
ations, Bagnold derived the formula: q¼ Cr/g(d/D)1/2 V03,
where q is the mass transport of sand across a transport lane of
unit width; C a dimensionless empirical constant that depended
on the degree and type of sand sorting; r the density of air; g the
acceleration due to gravity; d the average grain diameter for the
sand; D a standard grain diameter for the sand used in Bag-
nold’s original experiments (0.025 cm); and V0  the friction
(drag or shear) velocity, proportional to the square root of the
shear stress between the wind and the sheet of moving sand
when it began to move as the wind velocity was increased
(Bagnold, 1941: 67). He depicted the movement of sand grains
being driven along by wind in the cartoon reproduced in
Figure 12.
Bagnold considered the formation of sand ripples by im-
agining small random depressions in an initial surface. When
sand grains blow across a depression, one side will receive
more impacts than the other. In consequence, the sand surface
will change its profile to one in which there is a windward and
a leeward side, and this asymmetry will lead to the formation
of small ridges (more grains being blown upslope on the
windward side than fall on the leeward side). So ridges or
82 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

ripples begin to form, whose wavelengths may be calculated
relative to wind speed.
Strong winds, acting on dry sand, would give rise to dunes
rather than ripples, and the dune forms can move as wind
transfers sand over their crests from windward to leeward. Dune
asymmetry is increased by wind eddying on the leeward side.
Bagnold’s first discussion referred to a ‘long’ dune, where the
activities at its two ends could be ignored. But in general the
height of a dune is greatest at its mid-point so there is more sand
to move there. At the ends, where there is less sand to move,
material may be blown forward more easily and a dune may
become a crescent-shaped barchan. Bagnold also suggested how
a barchan might be transformed into a longitudinal dune, or
Grainpaths over pabble surface
Grain paths over loose sand surface
0 5 10 cm
Figure 12 Motions of sand-grains observed in Bagnold’s wind-
tunnel experiments. Reproduced from Bagnold, R.A., 1941. The
Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes. Methuen, London, 265 pp,
with permission from Methuen.
seif, by the occasional action of winds from a direction different
from the prevailing wind (Figure 13). Bagnold’s overall treat-
ment of aeolian landforms was mathematical, physical, and
experimental, but became more qualitative when considering
macroforms such as dunes (rather than ripples), which could
not be investigated experimentally.
1.5.16 Conclusion
Early in this essay, the ideas of William Morris Davis were
presented as functioning as a Kuhnian paradigm for the study
of the evolution or development of landscapes. But Kuhn gave
numerous versions of what he meant by the term ‘paradigm.’
Here it has been used in perhaps the most useful of his several
senses: a paradigm is a successful piece of work that others
utilize and adapt in their own researches. This undoubtedly
occurred with Davis himself as he applied ideas developed
from his interpretations of Appalachian and New England
landscapes to proposals on the development of coastlines,
glacial landforms, coral reefs, and so on. He also had numer-
ous devoted followers, such as Taylor, Cotton, Baulig, Johnson,
Wooldridge, Linton, and to some extent Lester King, who were
able to adapt Davis’s evolutionary and historical approach as
an exemplar for their own studies. In that sense Davis’s work
was paradigmatic and it characterised many geomorphic
studies during the first half of the twentieth century.
On the other hand, there was no universal acceptance of
Davisian ideas. As we have seen, there were substantial
countervailing forces, emanating chiefly from the work of
the German scientific community. Moreover, one cannot say
that Davis’s doctrine ‘died by a thousand cuts’ – or the accu-
mulation of counter-evidence (anomalies) that eventually led
to a Kuhnian scientific revolution. Rather, the Davisian model
became exhausted: it could not answer some interesting
kinds of questions, such as those investigated by Hjulström
and Bagnold. Nor did it cope well when applied to arid lands.
Its basic premise of rapid uplift followed by successive stages
of erosion came to be seen as simplistic or implausible.
So even as Davisian principles dominated the thinking of
many geomorphologists, the work of the likes of Gilbert,
Leighly, Hjulström, Rubey, Horton, and Bagnold heralded the

C
B B B
g
g
A A
A
(a) s
(b)
(c)
O
B A
g
g A
s s g D
(d)
g s
s
s (e)

Figure 13 Conversion of a barchan to a seif. g¼ direction of prevailing wind; s¼ direction of occasional storm winds.
 Geomorphology in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
onset of a more quantitative approach to geomorphology. The
quantitative revolution was yet to come. Eventually a new
mathematical and experimental geomorphology appeared
on stage around 1950, with landforms and land-forming
processes being subjected to measurement and analysis rather
than being constrained to denudation chronologies imposed
by an exhausted and failing model. That was the direction that
lay ahead.
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Biographical Sketch

Prof. David Oldroyd spent his academic career teaching History and Philosophy of Science at the University of
New South Wales and has published extensively in the history of geosciences. He is currently editor of ‘Earth
Sciences History’ and was Secretary General of the International Commission on the History of Geological
Sciences (INHIGEO) for eight years.