The Winding of Rivers

WITH your permission I would like to make a few remarks on the winding of rivers, which is at present being discussed in your pages. My observations were made while fishing, and my remarks refer to the rivers of our own country, and may not apply to rivers of greater volume. But first I would like to point out an objection to Prof. J. Thomson's experiments. In Prof. Thomson's paper in the report of the British Association for 1876 no details of the conditions of the experiment are given, but Sir Oliver Lodge in his letter (NATURE, November 28) says Prof. Thomson's model had a wooden bed. Now it is very evident that we must be careful in drawing conclusions from experiments made under these conditions. That wooden bed, however carefully made, would not be of the shape that nature would have given it, and any deviation from nature's shape would cause unnatural currents. It, however, does seem probable that something of the nature of Prof. Thomson's diagonal under-tow will exist even in river-shaped beds.