Kansas Acadcmij of Science. 187 



HISTORY OF KAW LAKE. 



J. E. Todd. 



Tj^IGHTEEN years ago Mr. B. B. Smyth read a paper be- 

 -L-/ fore the Academy, on "The Buried Moraine of the Shun- 

 ganunga." In it he sketched several glacial lakes which skirted 

 the edge of the Kansan ice sheet. Among these he outlined one 

 which he called Kaw Lake. The writer has studied it' as one 

 of the interesting chapters in the Pleistocene history of Kansas. 



DATA ASCERTAINED. 



Let us first notice the significant facts so far as they have 

 yet been recognized ; then offer a theoretical explanation of 

 them, and finally weave them into a consistent history. 



1. The Basin. 



When riding westward on the Union Pacific one loses sight 

 of bluff's containing limestone edges on the north side, a little 

 west of St. Marys. He fails to see any high ones again till he 

 comes upon them abruptly at Manhattan. There he passes 

 through a comparatively narrow^ gateway in a high, stony 

 ridge which runs northward along the west side of the Big Blue 

 and on the south swings eastward on the south side of the 

 Kansas river. 



East of the Blue the escarpment of higher hills leaves that 

 stream four or five miles north of Manhattan and trends 

 E. N. E. to the valley of Rock creek, and passing four or five 

 miles north of Louisville, curves more south to the vicinity of 

 St. Marys, as before stated. This rim rises frequently over 

 1,200 feet A. T. or 200 feet above the river, on the north, while 

 on the south it rises to 1,400 feet in a few miles, particularly 

 toward the west. 



Within the limits given, no point rises more than about 

 1.150 feet, and while limestone ledges are seen between Wa- 

 mego and St. George, they are low and are deeply covered with 

 sand and loamy clay, especially on the west. 



2. The Configuration of the Carboniferous Bedrock Below. 



The upper limit of the Pennsylvanian shales and thin lime- 

 stones lies at three levels, the lowest, underneath the channel 

 and flood plain of the Kansas river, is from forty to sixty feet 



