GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 115 



The Osage prairies have as their distinguishing features a series of 

 terraces which have been formed by erosion of the interstratified Car- 

 boniferous shales, sandstones, and limestones. The rocks have a 

 northeast-southwest strike, and the harder beds, being more resistant, 

 produce escarpments which, with many deviations, follow this direc- 

 tion from the Kansas river into the Indian Territory, although none 

 of them extend unbroken for the whole distance. The resistant beds^ 

 in Kansas are largely limestones, which outcrop at the top of the es- 

 carpments and on the surface of which back slopes are developed. In 

 the Indian Territory the limestones disappear and sandstone forma- 

 tions assume their role in the topographic features. The line of tran- 

 sition from sandstone escarpments to limestone escarpments is an 

 irregular V, extending northward from the Indian Temtory, with its 

 point approximately at Yates Center, in Kansas. 



The drainage of the Prairie plain is due primarily to the eastward slope of the 

 surface. ... In general the dip is westward, and the streams flow at right 

 angles to the strike, but slight deformations of the strata have caused a deflec- 

 tion of some of the streams to the southward. . . . The formations over which 

 the streams flow are beds of limestone, alternating with beds of sandstone and 

 shale. The unequal yielding of these materials to erosive agencies has produced 

 in general a terraced surface, the limestones protecting the escarpments, while 

 the shales and sandstones below have been carried away by the streams. The 

 inclination of the strata has produced a gradual slope (back slope) from the top 

 of one escarpment to the base of the next higher. (Adams, Kan. Acad. Sci., vol, 

 XVI, pp. 56, 57.) 



If one passes across the country from southeast toward the northwest, he will 

 be continuously passing up a series of terraces. . . . Here and there, wher- 

 ever there is a line of outcrops of an important limestone, there is a more or less 

 pronounced escarpment facing the southeast. . . . If the escarpment is bold, 

 and the underlying shale-bed is thick, a series of mounds always exists to the 

 southeast of the escarpment proper. These have plainly been produced by the 

 erosive agencies breaking through protecting limestone further to the west. 

 Such mounds sometimes are large, with broad, flat tops, as is well illustrated by 

 Table mound, northwest of Independence. Sometimes they have the form of a 

 frustum of a cone, so beautifully illustrated in the vicinity of Cherryvale and 

 Mound Valley. At other times, as at both these places, the protective limestone 

 is still maintained on their summits. In some instances the surface limestone 

 has been gradually worn away until the material consists entirely of masses of 

 shale, which may have a little sandstone interspersed. In these cases the sum- 

 mit of the mound is rounded. . . . It is interesting to note how the great 

 areas of mounds and escarpments coincide so exactly with the southeastern 

 limits of the shale-beds. Beginning at La Cygne and Boicourt, we have an area 

 characterized by mounds and steep bluff's, reaching to the southwest by way of' 

 Mound City, Uniontown, Cherryvale and Mound Valley to beyond the limits off 

 the state. | To the west there is] a similar topography in the vicinity of Neode- 

 sha and Independence. [Passing further along, similar features extend] from 

 Osawatomie to the southwest, by the way of Lane, Greeley, and Garnett. . . . 

 At Lawrence, Blue mound stands off five or six miles to the east of the general 

 outcropping of the limestone which forms its ptotective cap. . . . We find 



