216 Kansas Academy of Science. 



lying on the Permian, but not the same stratigraphic unit as 

 farther south, in McPherson county this appearing to be either 

 the basal members of the red beds or the Wellington shale, and 

 in the neighborhood of Salina the Marion formation. The 

 overlying strata are either the leaf-boaring beds of the "Da- 

 kota" or unfossiliferous sands and shales oi the same forma- 

 tion. 



The geographic limits of the centra] Kansas Comanchean 

 are probably not yet completely known, and it is not unlikely 

 that their former eastward extension is far greater than has 

 been supposed. So far as existing distribution is concerned, 

 it has been learned that there are outcrops on the slopes above 

 the river flood plains over the whole of Saline county, northern 

 and northwestern McPherson county, northwestern Marion 

 county, southeastern Ellsworth county and northeastern Rice 

 county. Unfossiliferous strata of a lithology identical to that 

 beneath the fossiliferous Comanchean rest on the Permian of 

 southwestern Dickinson county, while strata somewhat similar 

 occur in southwestern Clay county, southern Ottawa county, 

 and southeastern Lincoln county. The writer considers all of 

 these strata of Comanchean age. Mudge reported fossil shells 

 in the Dakota of Clay county, but the writer was not able to 

 obtain any. This gives outcrops of strata which are positively 

 Comanchean over an area approximating five hundred square 

 miles, but with many Permian inliers and Dakota outliers 

 within the area. How far west beneath the Dakota the Co- 

 manchean beds extend is not known, and remains a problem 

 for future investigation. 



There are no known connections between the Comanchean 

 beds of central Kansas and those of the southern part, the two 

 areas having been completely severed by the great overlapping 

 salient of the Tertiary which covers the divide between the 

 Arkansas and Cimarron rivers, this tongue also having severed 

 the Cretaceous of the north from that of the south. 



That the Comanchean beds are separated from the under- 

 lying Permian by an erosional conformity follows from the 

 fact of the vast interval of time between the times of deposi- 

 tion of the two systems of strata. The surface of the Permian 

 appears to have been one of some relief, but the observations 

 which have been made respecting this point are too few fori 

 generf^lization. In many places there does not appear to bel 



