GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 137 



peculiar mineral formation, which probably led to the sinking of the 

 shaft. The shaft goes through a yellow, clayey loam for about ten 

 feet, and then comes a dark colored, hard, finely laminated layer about 

 twelve feet thick. This is interspersed with nodules and crystalliza- 

 tions of marcasite, from the size of shot to a pound or two in weight. 

 The whole layer seems to be largely of the same mineral, oxidized and 

 broken down in its crystallization. This deposit has been submitted 

 to assay by many metallurgists, and found to contain gold and silver. 

 The amount is encouraging to the belief that, with a sufficient amount 

 of the material, we have here, at least, a deposit, where smelting fur- 

 naces will soon be producing Kansas gold in paying quantities. The 

 realization of this possibility depends on the extent of the deposit, or 

 how broad is this blanket of which the twelve feet in the shaft is a 

 small section. Below the twelve-foot hard layer we come to a soft 

 gray shale, filled with fossils of the coal formation. The marcasite 

 nodules make from two to ten per cent, of the whole mass of the 

 twelve-foot layer, and they carry more value than the rest in propor- 

 tion to weight. Investigations are in progress — first, to determine as 

 nearly as possible the proportions of nodules and stratified matter and 

 their respective average values ; and second, what is the area of the 

 twelve-foot stratum. 



The chief interest in this section at present is the quest for oil, 

 gas, and coal, and borings will soon be made within forty rods of this 

 shaft. There are many things to favor the idea that abundance of oil 

 and gas will be found in northeastern Kansas. The water in bottom 

 of the shaft shows traces of oil and a little farther north, in West- 

 moreland considerable crude petroleum has been collected from the 

 surface of water in pits of no great depth. At a mill-pond in Louis- 

 ville, one-half mile from the shaft above mentioned, an inflammable gas 

 rises through the water and large bubbles of it collect under the ice 

 in winter. The boys cut holes in the ice and light the gas with a 

 match. In the development of the mineral resources of our state 

 much depends on abundance of fuel. With the discovery of such 

 gas- wells as those of lola, their locality will become likewise the seat 

 of cement works and smelting furnaces. 



There are great possibilities in the mineral deposits of the earth, 

 and there is sufficient ter7'a incognita to satisfy the ambition of ex- 

 plorers and the cupidity of seekers after wealth. There are risks in 

 this search for mineral wealth. There will be many failures and few 

 successes, but when the latter come the former are little considered. 



The search for Kansas gold ought not to be discouraged, for it 

 exists in various deposits, and, even if never found plenty enough to 

 pay for extraction, the search is sure to reveal some form of mineral 

 wealth worth all its cost. 



