150 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



READING BLUE LIMESTONE. 



By Alva J. Smith, Emporia. 

 Read before the Academy, at Topeka, December 30, 1904, 



THIS name is proposed for a hard blue limestone which extends 

 across Greenwood, Lyon and Osage counties, and probably 

 much further. 



The outcropping margin of the stone is broken by the frost into ir- 

 regular fragments, which weather into more or less rounded forms on 

 the upper surface. A freshly broken surface of the stone is blue, the 

 oolor gradually changing by the action of the weather to a brown, and 

 finally to a buff. 



The results of an analysis are as follows: 



Hardness, 4; specific gravity 2.70. 



lasoluble portion 9.50 per cent. 



Alutninates and ferric carbonate (FeCOs) 10.00 " 



Calcium carbonate ( CaCOs) 78.50 



Magnesium carbonate (MgCOs) 2.00 " 



Total 100.00 per cent. 



Well-water taken from the shale below the blue stone is saline and 

 yields on analysis from 25 to 300 parts per million of chlorine as 

 sodium chloride. 



At Humphrey's ford, six miles southeast of Emporia, the follow- 

 ing section is found ( beginning at the bottom ) : 



1. Barclay limestone, about 12 



f 2. Yellow and blue shale 9 



I 3. Limestone. 1 



Humphrey shales, •{ 4. Shale 15 



I 5. Lixmeatone, fria,h\e {Streptorhynchus ci'enistria). . . 6 



[^6. Blue and yellow shale 13^ 



7. Reading blue limestone 3 



The following fossils have been taken from the blue stone near 

 Emporia : 



Crinoid columns. Rhomhojyoria lepidodendroides . 



Fusulina cylindrica. Setopora biserialis. 



Chonetes granulifera. Enteletes hemiplacata. 



Productu>i cora. Seminula argentea. 



DEFINITION AND SYNONYMY. 



The first reference made to the Emporia limestone is found in 

 volume 1 of the University Geological Survey of Kansas, page 80, in 

 Kirk's Neosho river section, where it is mentioned as being first seen 

 in Chicago mound, near Wyckoff. This system he says disappears 

 under the Neosho river near the Emporia water- works. 



