54 Kansas Academy of Scieyice. 



all the gas and oil fields are so situated, notable exceptions 

 being northeast of Ponca City, Okla., where there was a dry- 

 sand and the oil was found in the syncline. 



It would appear that at the time of some of the Ozark up- 

 lifts in the later geological times a line of bulges or anticlines 

 was formed in a ring clear arbund the Ozark region at a dis- 

 tance varying from sixty to more than a hundred miles, being 

 closer to the south and southwest than on the north and north- 

 east. Then there appear smaller ones in the region between 

 the great ring and the mountains, and as this great anticlinal 

 ring is where usually the entire Carboniferous age is in place, 

 it forms an ideal condition for the collection and preservation 

 of gas and oil, and on which line or ring are located the Cush- 

 ing field, Ponca City, Newkirk, Okla,, and the Arkansas City, 

 Baxter, Augusta, Elmdale and Wilsey fields, recently devel- 

 oped, and which appear to be only starting ; and then the Illi- 

 nois fields are on the same line. On this ring is located the 

 great Kaw valley anticline, which is particularly under dis- 

 cussion, and appears to be the largest one yet definitely located 

 and of rather an unusual shape ; this great ring being com- 

 posed of domes in two lines running from four to twelve miles 

 apart. 



This one is located about forty-five miles west of Topeka 

 and extends across the Kansas river, the extreme edges about 

 twenty miles east and west and about thirty or forty miles 

 northeast and southwest, and it might be compared in shape 

 to a great inverted meat platter, there being a wide outer ring 

 many miles in width, sloping very gradually, while in the 

 middle there is an area about four miles wide and nine miles 

 long that is practically horizontal ; and then between this in- 

 terior portion and the above-mentioned outer rim there is a 

 dip amounting to about 200 to 300 feet to the mile and about 

 two miles wide. There is, however, a dip in the middle of the 

 dome, or the bottom of the dish, thus leaving the highest part 

 in the form of a ring around the edge of the dome, it appear- 

 ing that the upthrust was so wide that the weight in the 

 middle caused it to settle back to some extent. 



This dome was first noted, so far as the writer can learn, 

 by the United States Geological Survey about the year 1853, 

 but no economic value was attached to it at that time, and only 

 within the past few weeks did I learn that it had been so noted. 



