108 KANSAS Academy of science. 



In more recent years, aside from some isolated specimens that have found their way 

 into collections, many interesting specimens have been collected by Professor Snow, 

 the late Judge E. P. West, Dr. George Baur, Charles Sternberg, E. C. Case, and my- 

 self. To none of these collectors, however, is so much credit due as to the late 

 Professor Mudge, my teacher and friend. While another, well-known author has re- 

 counted the hardships and dangers to which he was subject under the guardianship 

 of United States soldiers, Professor Mudge explored the regions wholly unprotected, 

 where danger from marauding Indians was often imminent. To Mudge is also due 

 the first, and, until now, almost our only published knowledge of the extent and 

 physical characters of the regions explored. Much of the information gathered by 

 him is, from the necessities of the case, incomplete and fragmentary, and in some 

 cases erroneous. There were scarcely any railroads then in the region, and explora- 

 tions required long and painful travels by wagon and on foot, oftentimes scores of 

 miles from the nearest human settlement. During nearly all the time that Professor 

 Mudge was in these regions, I was a member of his parties, and have since spent 

 some 10 months in similar explorations. I may, therefore, be permitted to offer the 

 following in continuation or correction of what he has published: 



The thickness of the Niobrara rocks has been hitherto underestimated. At El- 

 kader, in the valley of the Smoky Hill, in Logan county, repeated observations with 

 a good barometer gave 290 feet between the bottom of the valley and the highest 

 Niobrara rocks underlying the tertiary sandstone. Wells in the vicinity had pene- 

 trated at least 40 feet further without passing through the blue chalk, making a total 

 of 330 feet as the observed thickness at this place. From stratigraphical reasons, 

 which will be understood later, it seems certain that at least another 100 feet may be 

 added to this, giving as a minimum 430 feet as the total thickness at this place. 



There are many difficulties in the way of an absolutely correct measurement of 

 the outcrops. The rocks nowhere present clear lines of stratification over extended 

 areas. A slight difference in the coloration or the effects of weathering is all that 

 can be relied upon. Further, there are no extended areas of denudation where a 

 true knowledge of the dip can be ascertained, and, in addition, there are numerous 

 local disturbances which interfere with observations on a large scale. 



I am satisfied that the dip toward the north or northeast is much greater than 

 has been suspected, save, perhaps, by St. John. The rocks thin out with remarkable 

 rapidity south of the Smoky Hill, and are, I believe, wholly unrepresented south of 

 the Arkansas river. While the rocks in southwestern Trego county are not less than 

 200 feet thick, in Rush county, 30 miles to the southeast, the tertiary of the table- 

 lands lies immediately upon the Benton. The very characteristic, heavy, stratified 

 chalk, or soft, white limestone, at the base of this formation, about 80 feet in thick- 

 ness, extends across the State, from near Mankato, in Jewell county, on the north, to 

 north of Coolidge, in Hamilton or Greeley county, on the west. Its character and 

 thickness, wherever seen, are so unmistakable that it is at once recognized. In the 

 vicinity of Hays City, in Ellis county, its elevation is less than 1,5)00 feet; at the 

 western line of the State, more than 3,400 feet — an increase in 175 miles of over 

 1,500 feet. 



About 50 miles east of north of the westernmost outcrops the uppermost rocks 

 of the cretaceous appear at an elevation of 3,100 feet. But these upper cretaceous 

 rocks at McAUaster are at least 400 feet above the lowest, making a dip, if I am not 

 mistaken, of 600 or 700 feet in the 50 miles. Before this remarkable dip had be- 

 come evident to me by the discovery of the basal strata in Hamilton county, I had 

 been very much at a loss to account for the marked northern inclination of the 

 stratified, or Fort Hays beds, as I will caU them, in Ness and Trego counties. This 

 marked northeastward inclination of the strata has already been spoken of by 



