A Preliminan^ Report on the Glaciated Area 



of Kansas. 



BV EARL G. SWKM. 



(The following? paper, wriltoii by Mr. Earl G. Swem, gives a few of the results of liis 

 luvestlgatioiis on the glaciated area of Kansas during the past summer while working 

 for the University Geological Survey of Kansas, and is preliminary to a fuller report 

 which it is hoped he will be able to prepare after another season's field work. E. H.) 



In the summer of 1895 the writer made a tramp through the 

 counties of Doniphan. Brown, Jackson, Atchison, Shawnee, Doug- 

 las, Leavenworth and Wyandotte for .the purpose of observing 

 glacial phenomena. The counties traversed do not constitute the 

 whole glacial region of Kansas. This sketch, then, in so far as it 

 deals with the glacial problem of the whole state is and must be 

 imperfect. It is given more for presenting facts which have been 

 preserved than for the suggestion of theories. 



The whole drift region of the state has not been surveyed in de- 

 tail by anyone. Of those who have been observers. Prof. Chamber- 

 lain is one. He has examined the line of the border of the drift and 

 loess and says * "In harmony with all previous observations in the 

 interior basin, I found in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, no evi- 

 dence of morainic ridging on the border of the drift, and it may be 

 safely asserted that no such morainic aggregation exists except as 

 a local development." Dr. Wright says fin regard to this region: 

 '• It would seem that the action of water and floating ice was pre- 

 dominant in determining the character of the glacial deposits over 

 that region (Eastern Kansas and Nebraska), and the theory is 

 plausibly suggested by Prof. Todd that the extension of the ice 

 beyond the Missouri formed glacial dams across the valleys of the 

 Kansas and Platte rivers so as to maintain for a short period tem- 

 porary lakes of considerable extent which received and distributed 

 the bowlder fragments of ice as well as the finer elements of the 

 glacial deposits. The most of the glaciated portion of this region 

 is deeply covered with fine loam or loess, which is probably a water 

 deposit and, as we shall hereafter see, is on good grounds believed 

 by Chamberlain and Salisbury to be an assorted variety of glacial 

 silt directly derived from glacial waters." 



* 6th An. Eep. Director l'. S. G., S. p. SI. 

 +Ice Age in N. Am., p. 144. 



(l.VJ) KAN. i;MV. yilAU.. vol.. IV. .NO. :j, .lA.M.'AKY, J8«ti. 



