212 Kansas Academy of Scie7ice. 



Following Ferrell's law, the streams of the basin have generally 

 shifted to the south as they have cut down, so that the terraces are 

 generally on the north and the abrupt bluffs are upon the south. 

 The few changes of channels are toward the north, or down the dip. 



TRACES OF DIFFERENT DRAINAGE LEVELS. 



Evidences have been found of three or four different levels of 

 drainage: 



1. The highest and oldest noted is marked by stratified chert 

 gravels several feet thick, capping the divide, five to seven miles 

 south of Auburn. Their altitude is about 1200 feet. 



2. The second consists of higher bouldery patches, showing a 

 comparatively level surface of deposition either of streams or of 

 land ice. This feature shows particularly south and somewhat 

 north of the middle portion of the stream and of its valley about 

 Clinton and eastward. These patches lie from 150 to 200 feet 

 above the present streams. 



3. In the eastern portion of its valley, limited and detached 

 fragments of a lower level, more distinctly resembling a boulder- 

 oapped terrace, are found, 125 to 175 feet above the Wakarusa. 

 The Three Sisters and a similar flat- topped hill east are the best 

 examples. 



Possibly these are but a lower continuation of the preceding, 

 below rapids, by which the Wakarusa may have first crossed the 

 Oread limestone. These are more clearly the result of stream 

 action, and no boulder patches of the preceding kind are known as 

 i&T east. 



4. The clearest marked level may be called that of the lower 

 bouldery terraces. It is marked by very impressive strips of red 

 quartzite boulders from six inches to six feet in diameter. These 

 strips are frequently entirely composed of boulders for a thick- 

 ness of ten or twenty feet, and the depth of the bouldery deposit, 

 including much sand and finer material, is sometimes forty or fifty 

 feet. The upper portion, where it has not been subject to erosion, 

 is frequently quite fine loam. Where erosion has been most active 

 and the adjacent deposits soft, these strips stand out as ridges, 

 which from their bouldery composition and linear form have been 

 mistaken for moraines. This condition is perhaps best exhibited 

 near Burnett's mound, southwest of Topeka. More frequently one 

 side is eroded, with cross ravines revealing a cross-section of the 

 old stream bed, with one bank remaining. Such is the case near 

 Berryton, Tevis and Auburn. Sometimes the banks are traceable 

 on both sides, as north of Pauline and southwest of Clinton. 



