Bank storage‐loss and recovery of Missouri River discharge during drought of 1934

Whenever measurements show that the discharge of a stream becomes smaller as it passes downstream to a considerably larger drainage-area and no diversions of water are known to exist between the places of measurement, curiosity is always aroused as to the cause, and a question may be raised as to the accuracy of the measurements purporting to show the decrease.

Small streams sometimes disappear in fault-planes and crevices in rocky regions with relatively high slopes, or in flat sand- and gravel-bars, and then reappear full-size farther downstream. This behavior, however, represents no decrease in the discharge but merely means that the stream is following an underground rather than a surface-course for that part of its travel.