26 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



with the limestone ingredients at the time of deposition — a fact illustrated 

 and applied in the manufacture of the Ransom artificial stone. The small 

 amount of magnesium carbonate hardly indicates metamorphosis, as nearly 

 all limestones contain as much. Indeed, in view of Dr. T. S. Hunt's re- 

 searches, (Chem. and Geolog. Essays, 2d ed., pp. 138 and 86,) we should not 

 expect a reaction to occur between a limestone and magnesium salts in solu- 

 tion. As the spring water contains no iron whatever, the ferrous carbonate 

 was probably an original constituent of the stone. 



The only metamorphosis, then, indicated by this analysis, is that resulting 

 in the formation of three to four per cent, of silicate of lime — a small amount 

 comparatively, but sufficient to impart to the stone a hardness plainly supe- 

 rior to that of ordinary limestone. 



In conclusion, my explanation for the existence of the mound is, briefly, 

 that the limestone strata constituting the present mound were once continu- 

 ous across the Solomon valley, and formed the bed of that river; that the 

 Great Spirit spring, then entirely submerged, added its mite upward through 

 the river bottom to the mighty flood above ; that the alkaline silicate of the 

 spring water gradually effected the partial silicification of the limestone bed 

 in all directions, within a certain radius, so hardening and cementing that 

 portion as to enable it to withstand the eroding action of the river, when, 

 having subsided to the limits of the "lower bottom," it disintegrated and 

 washed away the unchanged limestone, leaving the preserved portion (upon 

 the further subsidence of the waters to their present bed ) no longer an islet, 

 but a mound upon dry land — a monument to the power of the chemical 

 agencies at work in nature's laboratory. 



SINK -HOLES IN WABAUNSEE COUNTY. 



BY JOSEPH SAVAGE. 



While on a visit to Wabaunsee county during the summer of 1879, my 

 attention was directed to a series of sink-holes which occur near the south- 

 ern line of the county, some four or five miles northwest of Washara post- 

 office. These sink-holes occupy a space of about four miles in extent from 

 east to west, and a much narrower limit from north to south. They occur 

 upon high prairie, the highest, in fact, in all that region. The surface upon 

 which the sink-holes are situated is quite level, and would make good arable 

 land for cultivation. The sink-holes pass through two rock formations, both 

 of impure limestone. The uppermost formation is about two feet in thick- 

 ness, while the lower one is four or five feet thick and fifteen or twenty feet 

 below the surface. The sinks pass through both of these strata and the in- 

 tervening clays, and the subterranean caverns are found below the lower 

 rock formation. 



