FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 37 



RED SANDSTONE OF CENTRAL KANSAS. 



BY B. F. MUDGE. 



Next above the Permian a belt of red sandstone, corresponding 

 in appearance and (in part) in position with the new red sandstone 

 of the older geologists, crosses the State of Kansas from the State 

 line in Washington county in a southwesterly direction to the Indian 

 Territory, passing out of the State near its southwestern corner. 

 Its extent within our State is about three hundred miles, and its 

 width in a northwesterly line varies from thirty to fifty miles. The 

 middle and lower portion of this deposit has usually been assigned 

 to the Triassic, but as it contains scarcely any fossils, and those not 

 in good preservation, its true position is still uncertain. Prof. Swal- 

 low found but a single fossil, and that a doubtful nucula.* Other 

 geologists have succeeded no better in collecting or identifying the 

 fossils of this division of the red sandstone of Kansas. The only 

 evidence that any portion of this sandstone is older than the Cre- 

 taceous, is the fact that in northern Nebraska, under the red sand- 

 stone of the Cretaceous, is a deposit of sandstone in physical 

 characteristics, identical with ours, in which the fossils are recognized 

 by Meek as clearly Jurassic. As the Cretaceous is traced uninter- 

 ruptedly from thence to Kansas, and no unconformability is.anywhere 

 seen, it is not improbable that a portion of our territory is covered 

 with Triassic or Jurassic rocks. Until further discoveries are made 

 the question must be considered an open one, whether either of 

 these formations exist in Kansas, though my opinion is they do not. 



While we were in doubt concerning the age of the lower portion 

 of this red sandstone deposit, we are not left in doubt in relation to 

 the true position of the higher strata. • Although there is no differ- 

 ence in the higher and lower strata, and it is even difficult to trace 

 a single bed and identify it over an extent of twenty miles, yet the 

 fossils of the later or higher deposits are well preserved and unmis- 

 takably Cretaceous. 



The most marked and important fossils are the leaves of dicoty- 

 ledonous plants. These are usually in good state of preservation, 

 the veins and veinlets being frequently as clearly visible in all their 

 outlines, as they lie imprinted on stone, as those just taken from 

 living trees. These represent about a dozen different genera, the 



* Meek, in the last report on tlie geology of tliis State and the ad.ioinin<; territories, does not 

 mention any Triassic fossils as found in Kansas. 



