GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. Ic59 



the bottom lands in every direction, and Friday and Saturday wit- 

 nessed the greatest flood ever seen by white men in the valleys of 

 Saline county. Probably two-thirds of thi ground level of Salina 

 was covered with water, and from roofs of high buildings or the hills 

 one could look out over miles and miles of glistening, swirling water. 



According to observations made by the first settlers of Salina, 

 backed by Indian traditions, a flood probably even greater swept 

 through the valley in 1844. 



From the information gleaned from A. M. Campbell, of Salina, and 

 other pioneers, old drift marks could still be seen in 1859 along the 

 base of the bluflfs and in timber that indicated a flood even higher 

 than the recent one. But I am of the opinion that had the surface 

 of central and western Kansas been covered with the hard buffalo- 

 grass sod of forty years ago the water would have run off into the 

 drainage channels with such rapidity that the same conditions ex- 

 isting last May would have produced a flood fully as great as the tra- 

 ditional flood of 1844. 



Geologists and others have indulged in much speculation concern- 

 ing the origin of the broad alluvial plains forming the valleys of the 

 Smoky Hill and other streams, and said surely these insignificant 

 streams never did this work. But I think in this year of 1903 the 

 Smoky arose in its might to claim its own and demonstrate its right. 

 Peculiar depressions that seemed to have no special functions as 

 drainage channels became roaring torrents. The terrible havoc 

 wrought by the flood in the valleys below Salina is too well known to 

 be given space here, but I think a little consideration of the work of 

 this one flood will convince any one that two or three such occurrences 

 in a century would not require many thousand years to build up 

 vast flood-plains, and I wish to call especial attention to the changes 

 produced in the uplands. I have made collecting trips into certain 

 regions of Ellsworth, Saline and McPherson counties almost every 

 summer during the last ten years, and in revisiting several of these 

 localities since the middle of July I have been astonished at the 

 work of destruction among the hills. 



The clays and shales became so softened by the long-continued 

 saturation that landslides are in evidence everywhere among the hills 

 with steep slopes and along the little canyons of the Dakota, and here 

 and there great gullies are cut down the slopes. Flowing springs 

 now exist where springs were unknown before ; wells that had fur- 

 nished but a scanty supply of water for years are now filled to a depth 

 of many feet ; dry creeks are now running streams ; for example. Dry 

 creek, by name, a tributary of Mulberry creek, west and southwest of 

 Salina, has only carried water at seasons of heavy rains, but at this 

 date is carrying a good running stream of clear water. 



