TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 107 



method of analysis has not been fully decided upon, I am obliged to say that the 

 figures I herewith give may in future require some alteration. 

 The following table shows results of a preliminary analysis: 



EXAMINATION OF TABAXACUM BOOT COLIiECTED IN 



May. September. 



Moisture in fresh root, dried at 45° C 81.24 per cent. 73.00 per cent. 



Loss in drying, at 100° C 13.45 " 11.79 " 



Juice extracted by pressure 57.00 " very small " 



Percentage of solid in j nice 1 . 472 " 



Reducible sugar in juice 036 " .02052" 



At a future time I hope to be able to verify these figures, and at the same time 

 make a fuller report of all the principal constituents of the root at various seasons 

 ■of the year. 



THE NIOBRARA CRETACEOUS OF WESTERN KANSAS. 



BY 3. W. WIIiLISTON, STATE TJNIVEBSITY, LAWBENCE. 



Even an approximately correct map of the outcrops of the Niobrara cretaceous 

 in Kansas cannot be given until they have been systematically surveyed. The over- 

 lying tertiary is everywhere unconformable, and is found at varying levels, even 

 within short distances. It is very evident that the main valley.'? of the region had 

 been eroded before the deposition of the tertiary rocks, and, although the sandstones 

 have been since almost wholly eroded in the valleys, yet they remain in isolated patches 

 over a large part of the Niobrara region. 



The most northern exposures of the rocks are said to be on the Sappa, but I have 

 seen them only as far north as the Prairie Dog, where they occur at various places 

 in the immediate river valley from Norton to the State line. On the North Fork of 

 the Solomon the Niobrara reaches nearly to Lent)ra, though the western outcrops 

 are insignificant. On the South Fork it appears as far west as the extreme western 

 line of Graham county. On the Saline it reaches only a little way into Trego county. 

 By far the greatest amount of exposure is found in the valley of the Smoky Hill, 

 where denuded areas are found quite to the western line of the State. South of the 

 Smoky Hill the exposures are very few. 



At another time I shall give more fully the history of the explorations of these 

 regions; at present a brief sketch will suQice. Almost the earliest collections of fos- 

 sils from this region were made by army surgeons stationed at Fort Hays or Fort 

 Wallace, especially Doctors Janeway and Sternberg. 



The next explorer to make any scientific examination of the beds was, I think, 

 Professor Mudge; but the first collections of moment were made by Professor Marsh, 

 with a party of Yale students, who spent several weeks in the vicinity of Wallace, 

 under an escort of United States soldiers, in 1870. 



In 1871, Professor Cope made some valuable collections in the same region, an 

 account of which is given in his Cretaceous Vertebrata. Again, in 1872, Professor 

 Marsh with a party spent several weeks, under hardships similar to those of his first 

 expedition, on the upper Smoky Hill. In this and the following season. Professor 

 Mudge made collections in the northern part of the State, among which was the first 

 specimen of a bird showing teeth, which specimen has never been equaled since. 

 All these collections, however, were trivial in amount and value to the extensive col- 

 lections made during the following four or five years, by parties of which Professor 

 Mudge, H. A. Brous, E. W. Guild, George Cooper, Charles Sternberg and the writer 

 were members. 



