29 



red shale are frequent and of the same horizon, no trace of any fossd vegetable 

 remains could be found by a party of three who were actively searching for 

 them in every direction. South of Fort Harker, on the Smoky Hill River, a 

 locality discovered by Mr. Ch. Sternberg, who lives near by, is a small hollow 

 where the red shales are full of leaves in a thickness of 8 to 10 feet ; while 

 out of this none have been found for a great distance. This hollow would not 

 cover, I think, half an acre of ground. The same remark has been made by 

 Prof. B. F. Mudge, of Manhattan College, who has for many years, as State 

 geologist of Kansas, explored the Dakota group, studying its geological dis- 

 tribution and its paleontology with the greatest care. Some of the finest 

 specimens of its fossil flora have been discovered by him. In the Transactions 

 of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, the professor remarks: 1 "The fossil 

 plants are found at certain intervals of territory. In searching for them we 

 have frequently examined every visible outcrop for fifteen or twenty miles 

 without finding a specimen; then, perhaps, a single square mile would furnish 

 several good localities. Our cabinet is represented by specimens collected 

 from twenty-five or thirty places from Washington County to Fort Larned, 

 near the Arkansas, a distance of one hundred aud seventy-five miles. The 

 fossil plants are usually obtained from thin layers or strata, extending in a 

 horizontal position along a ravine or around a hill. They may occur at 

 several places in the same vicinity, but usually without any connection. Thus, 

 in Clay County, near Riverdale, they were found at the bottom of a well as 

 low as the bed of the Republican, and on the top of an adjoining hill 200 feet 

 high, with numerous strata between, in which none could be seen. The de- 

 posits appear to have been local, dependent upon circumstances. There 

 must have been, necessarily, an arm of the sea with soft, sandy mud, bordered 

 by an adjoining dry land covered with a forest. The characteristic of the 

 local deposits indicate that the forests were on small islands scattered over 

 the Cretaceous ocean." 



The leaves, moreover, are not variously mixed, as they should be if they 

 had been carried from any distance by currents or any other kind of motive- 

 power ; but are generally found in groups of representatives of same or analo- 

 gous species. For example: all the specimens of Juglans(1) deheyana sent 

 to me for determination are marked from two localities only; from Decatur, 

 Nebraska, twenty-nine specimens; and from three miles northeast of Fort 



' P. 395. 



