TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 41 



tain only from one-fifteenth to one-twentieth the amount of nickel present in the 

 lowest grade ores yet subjected to profitable treatment. 



I made a second visit to this locality Oct. 20th, for the express purpose of mak- 

 ing a more thorough search for evidence of metamorphic action. But no such 

 evidence could be discovered, and the conclusions made after my first visit were con- 

 firmed by the second. There is no change of limestone to marble, of shales to schist, 

 or of sandstone and conglomerate to chert. The so-called ''ore" lies at or near the 

 bottom of the Tertiary strata, just at or above their contact with the Niobrara sec- 

 tion of the cretaceous formation. The characteristic fossils of the Niobrara rocks are 

 abundant in the immediate vicinity, entirely unaltered by metamorphic action. 

 Within ten rods of the Nickel Queen mine I found an unusually perfect valve of the 

 large mollusk of the genus Haploscapha. Within half a mile of this mine were 

 abundant vertebrae of the common cretaceous fish Portheus molossus, with occasion- 

 ally a saurian vertebra. Metamorphic action such as seems necessary for the for- 

 mation of valuable metallic ores would have obliterated these fossils in rocks so nearly 

 adjacent to the ore-beds. 



As bearing upon the question whether the geologist has the right to expect nickel 

 ores in Kansas, it will be necessary to consider the location of these ores in other 

 regions. So far as I have been able to ascertain, they occur without exception in 

 the crystalline or metamorphic rocks, where there has been a conspicuous displace- 

 ment of the strata from their original horizontal position, with evidences of their 

 having been subjected to great pressure, and consequent high temperature. They 

 also ot'cur in the oldest crystalline rocks rather than in those of a later formation. 

 Almost without exception they are located in the Archfean rocks, and without excep- 

 tion where the strata have been upheaved in mountain elevations. They occur in 

 moderate quantity, in close association with chrome ores, in the serpentine rocks 

 from Canada to Maryland. They are generally diffused throughout the magnesium 

 rocks of the Quebec group in Canada. They are found in the serpentines of Corn- 

 wall, the Vosges and Mt. Rosa, and in the primitive schists of Norway. Mr. W. P. 

 Blake, contributing to the volume of the U. S. Geological Survey upon the mineral 

 resources of the United States, states that the most available ore of nickel, and the 

 only one worked up to this date in the United States, is the sulphide, occurring in 

 connection with the iron pyrites. This is an ore which occurs at many places along 

 the lines of the older or Architan rocks, being found with beds of pyrrhotite ( or mag- 

 netic iron) from Canada southward. At Chatham, Conn., the nickel and cobalt ores 

 occur in mica schist. There are small quantities of nickel at other places in an- 

 cient schists of Connecticut. The nickel ore of Thunder Bay, on the north shore of 

 Lake Superior, is associated with native silver, and occurs in a vein traversing Hu- 

 ronian talcose slates. 



The newly discovered deposits of nickel ore in Oregon, containing from 20 to 30 

 per cent, of nickel oxide, are found in serpentine with chromite and steatite. The 

 ore of New Caledonia, averaging 18 per cent, of nickel oxide (Garnierite), occurs in 

 veins within serpentine. The richness and abundance of these ores, and the ease with 

 which they are smelted, has lowered the price of nickel and driven many of the poorer 

 ores from the market. 



It would therefore appear that geological considerations are unfavorable to the 

 existence of valuable nickel ore in the State of Kansas. There are no Archaean rocks 

 in Logan county — no crystalline rocks, and no veins containing metallic ores. The 

 minute quantities of nickel and cobalt indicated by Professor Bailey's analysis may 

 perhaps be accounted for by the fact that these metals, in very minute quantities, 

 are universally disseminated over the surface of the earth, in the meteoric dust which 

 is constantly falling through the atmosphere. According to Professor H. A. Newton, 



