Kansas Academy of Sgiexge. 



This fact is not yet verified suflficiently, but it is in accordance with correct theory. 

 It is a negative fact in favor of this, that so far coal (lignite) has not been found 

 (or only slight traces of it) in the borings that have been made from the levels of 

 the high prairie through the Benton to the Dacotah, as in the artesian boring at 

 Russell city. 



If the Dacotah period was characterized by a shallow sea with sandbars and low 

 islands and peninsulas, with these sub-aerial parts clothed with forest, and if the to- 

 tal deposit does not exceed five hundred feet in thickness, as Prof. Mudge gives, and 

 as is very probable,* it would not be expected that carbonaceous deposits would be 

 sufficient to give a bed of coal in the earlier half of the period. Where the deposits 

 of dicotyledonous leaves extend through a considerable vertical mass, it would sug- 

 gest the possibility of a lignitic deposit near. But this is not verified by observation. 

 The famous deposits of leaves are not in the neighborhood of the lignite, and the 

 thick, massive sandstones of the Dacotah are all below the horizon of the lignitic 

 coal. That the sand deposits were not favorable to the fossilizing of organic forms 

 is well known, and hence there are comparatively few occurrences of fossil wood in 

 the Dacotah. In the lower beds of the Benton there is abundance of it. The speci- 

 mens are calcareous petrifactions. It is manifest that they represent wood of the 

 Dacotah period, probably of the lignitic horizon, water-logged and imbedded in the 

 calcareous mud of the early Benton seas. There is none in the upper Benton. 



There is one other fact that will possibly be of importance in the development 

 of the lignitic horizon in southwest Kansas. In the area in which the Dacotah is 

 known in Kansas there is undoubtedly a change of dip from westerly to easterly in 

 the great body of the formations. We have previously pointed out that this would 

 have a bearing on the water supply of western Kansas, and recent artesian borings 

 at Coolidge and Fowler confirm our judgment. In the Arkansas valley and further 

 south it will have a bearing on the probable supply of lignite for fuel or use in sugar 

 manufacture, for which Prof. Swenson has pointed out its value. The easterly dip 

 of the strata in the valley of the great river is not much different from the slope of 

 the stream. The effect of this is to keep the lignitic horizon not far from the sur- 

 face over an immense area. In a part of the southwest the cretaceous formations 

 are hidden by the two tertiary deposits, and it may be that they have, by preventing 

 percolation and by added pressure, preserved areas of lignite of better quality than 

 any yet found. Of course the drill only can settle this, but the areas in which it is 

 probable or possible can be approximately determined. 



Note.— The published record of a drill-hole at Cawker City suggests some exception to be made to 

 some of the conclusions of this paper ; but there are some grounds to suspect the accuracy of that rec- 

 ord, and in the absence of confirmatory evidence we leave the present discussion of its bearings. Re- 

 cent discovery by Prof. Hill of another cretaceous horizon in Texas, and the Texan character of the 

 shell bed in Barber county, suggest a possible change in the horizon of the southern lignite which 

 must be determined by further investigation; but it is certain that the horizon exists in the Dacotah 

 as black shale in the more western counties south of the Arkansas river, as Morton and Stanton. 



ON THE NEWLY-DISCOVERED SALT BEDS IN ELLSWORTH COUNTY, 



KANSAS. 



BY E. H. S. BAILEY, PH.D. 



That there are salt beds underlying many portions of this State, seems to have 

 been recognized for many years. Where deep wells have been sunk the flow of salt 

 water is often abundant, and as we go farther west, the salt waters are nearer the sur- 



*The Russell boring does not give more than 375 feet for the thickness of the Dacotah. 



