120 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



with a scant growth of grass, the various limestone systems are seen in parallel 

 ledges, and are very conspicuous on account of their whiteness. . . . (Adams, 

 Univ. Geo], Surv. Kan., vol. I, pp. 27, 28.) 



The higher formations of what is generally referred to as the Red 

 Beds in Kansas and Oklahoma contain resistant rocks at several 

 horizons, and erosion has developed within their area a distinctly 

 difPerent surface from what is found in the Oklahoma prairies. The 

 line of separation between these two divisions is the Gypsum Hills 

 escarpment, already referred to. The topographic forms of common 

 occurrence are small, table-like plateaux and flat-topped hills, which 

 are the minor elements. The area is a dissected upland, with its 

 western border grading to the. High plains without perceptible dift'er- 

 ence of elevation — the rise in surface to the westward being accom- 

 plished by a series of steps within the upland. The Red Hills upland 

 has already been well described by several authors. The following 

 descriptions are particularly applicable to them : 



In eastern Barber county, in the buttes to the north of Sharon and the 

 Cedar hills to the south, the rugged and picturesque country of the Red Beds 

 begins. . . . This region, with frequent steep buttes and streams lined by 

 steep bluffs, extends across Barber, Comanche and Clark counties to the east- 

 ern part of Meade. The best exposures of the middle portion of the series of 

 rocks forming them, as well as some of the most picturesque parts of this coun- 

 try, may be seen in Barber county, in the Cedar hills, and along the steep line 

 of bluffs and hills to the west of the Medicine Lodge river, especially in the 

 Gypsum hills to the southwest of the city of Medicine Lodge. When seen from 

 the hills to the east of Medicine Lodge, at a distance of ten miles, in the early 

 morning sunlight, they form a landscape of striking beauty, which, once seen, 

 will never be forgotten. The reddish color of the steep sides of the hills, whose 

 walls suggest gigantic fortifications, is clearly visible, while the top of the hills 

 appears in the hazy distance like a great table-land. (Prosser, Univ. Geol. Surv. 

 Kan., vol. II, pp. 84, 85.) 



If, on the road from Harper to Medicine Lodge, the traveler finds himself 

 looking westward across the valley of Medicine Lodge river, on one of those en- 

 chanting days for which southern Kansas yields the palm to no other locality, 

 the autumn air being tinged with just enough of haze to purple the remoter 

 vistas of the ruddy landscape, "The splendor falls on castle walls" which rear 

 themselves seemingly as low mountains or buttressed escarpments of a table-land 

 crowning the further incline of the valley and bounding a considerable part of 

 the western horizon. (Cragin, Colo. Coll. Studies, vol. VI, p. 28.) 



The whole country is red. ^ The soil, even where it contains much carbona- 

 ceous matter, is ruddy ; the sedimentary soil just forming on the steeper slopes 

 is ruddier; flooded rivers glance in the sunlight like streams of blood: steep 

 bluffs and the sides of narrow canons pain the eye with their sanguine glare 

 The hard ledges are persistent for long distances, and give a definite contour to 

 weathered bluffs and ridges. . . . One of these layers south and west of the 

 Medicine river is persistent over a considerable area. The erosion of the valley 

 has left it nearly at the top of the area in which it appears, showing as an irregu- 

 lar plateau sloping east and north to the river. ... In the lower valley the 

 western boundary of the white sandstone plateau is a solid wall of red rock rising 



