GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 99 



GEOLOGY OF LYON COUNTY, KANSAS.* 



By Alva J. Smith, Emporia, Kan. 

 Read before the Academy, at McPherson, December, 1899. 



n["^HE section begins with a stratum of coal from fourteen to eigh- 

 ^ teen inches in thickness on the east line of Lyon county, two 

 miles east and one mile south of Neosho Rapids, where the forma- 

 tion has a dip of about twenty feet to the mile nearly west. Eleva- 

 tion, 1000 feet. 



Above the coal is found from six inches to two feet of shale, then 

 an eighteen-inch limestone, eighteen inches of shale, and another 

 limestone of about equal thickness. The limestones referred to are 

 also well exposed in the river at the Neosho Rapids bridge. Thence 

 passing northwest over about forty feet of shale, we find a limestone 

 thirty to forty feet thick. This stone is characterized by rough 

 weathering, many cavities filled with calcite crystals, a conglomerate 

 appearance, and clusters of FusuUna cylindrica. On account of its 

 proximity to Neosho Rapids, it has been designated the Neosho lime- 

 stone until it may be identified as a stone previously named elsewhere. 

 A good exposure of this stone is found in Rock cut three-quarters of 

 a mile west of Neosho Rapids, It is also well exposed in the ravines 

 to the north and northeast, and is also found forty feet thick in a well 

 at the foot of Chicago mound, five miles southwest of this locality. 



Above this stone is twenty-two feet of arenaceous shale approxi- 

 mating sandstone in places, then a two-foot limestone containing 

 concretionary nodules averaging two inches in diameter. These 

 nodules are mostly constituted of oxide of iron, but some are found 

 which carry a small quantity of zinc sulphide. This stone is well 

 exposed in Chicago mound and the ravines north of Neosho Rapids, 

 in Badger creek, north side section 11, township 19, range 12, and. 

 Coal creek. Two feet beneath this stone is a stratum of coal six. 

 inches thick, which I take to be a remnant of the Osage City coal. 



Between this and the Burlingame limestone is thirty feet of shale 

 and sandstone. The Burlingame limestone is well exposed at 

 Humphrey's ford, six miles southeast of Emporia, where it has a dip 

 of eighteen feet to the mile, 70° west of north, and passes under the 

 river about two miles farther up. 



Passing up the bluff seventy-five feet, at Humphrey's ford we find 

 above the Burlingame limestone, nine feet of yellow and blue shale, 



* Map and sections illustrating this article will be found in volume XVII of the Academy's 

 Transactions. 



