Nineteenth annual Meeting. 45 



coal measures of lyon county. 



BY D. S. KELLY, EMPORIA, KANSAS. 



Lyon county is situated near the center of the vast region of Kansas known as 

 the Upper Coal Measures, and near the eastern border of the division of these meas- 

 ures sometimes called the Permian strata. This county is as far west as we should 

 expect to find coal outcrops in this latitude. Many attempts were made to find coal 

 in this county before the efforts met with anything like success. About eight years 

 ago borings were made near Emporia which resulted in failure to find coal, except 

 eome very thin layers. Along ravines, in various parts of the county, outcrops may 

 be found which show evidences of coal, but not until within the last two or three 

 years have any of these proved workable coal-bearing strata. The first opened 

 which yield coal in any paying quantities are those in the eastern part of the county 

 near Neosho Rapids, of which mention is made in the State Agricultural Report for 

 1885. 



Within the past year coal has been found at a number of places in the northern 

 part of the county. On the farm of Henry King, eight miles north and two miles 

 east of Emporia, veins nine inches thick have been reported. Near the new town of 

 Admire, recently, on sinking a shaft to the depth of twenty-eight feet, coal of good 

 quality was found to be seventeen inches thick. 



For some time past it has been thought that coal existed in paying quantities 

 near Emporia. Four years ago an unsuccessful attempt to find coal was made about 

 three miles to the northwest of Emporia. No further attempts were made in that 

 direction, until a short time ago a company of three men, Wise, Fritz, and Reeves, 

 leased a number of acres a little to the northwest of the place mentioned above. 

 About two months ago they began to drive tunnels into the hill from a ravine, and 

 met with encouraging results. A few days ago I visited these mines, and found that 

 four tunnels had been driven into the hill at short distances apart, the longest one 

 being 175 feet. Nowhere has the vein of workable coal been less than eleven inches. 

 At some places it seems to have been thrown up in folds, where it is seventeen inches 

 thick. The quality of this coal, for some distance in, is about the same as the Fort 

 Scott red coal; then a black coal is reached, which compares favorably in quality 

 to the Osage shaft coal. The men who are in charge of this work are very confident 

 that the enterprise will be a paying one, and expect soon to put a force of thirty or 

 forty men at work. 



NOVEMBEE 17, 1886. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF GEOLOGICAL WORK IN THE STATE OF 



KANSAS. 



BY ROBERT HAY, U.S.G.S., AND A. H. THOMPSON, D. D. S. 



Being in the center of the continent, touching the great river Missouri, and hav- 

 ing within its borders several important tributaries that find their way to that stream 

 or the greater Mississippi, Kansas has been ofttimes on the route of explorers. 

 Some geological features and some of the minerals of its formations have had no- 

 tice from the earliest times. 



In 1724 De Bourgmont, a Frenchman, passed up the Kaw valley, and the very 

 slight notice he makes of mineralogy enables us to see that he saw those glacial 

 boulders which are found in the northeast of the State. His words are ( London 

 translation of Du Pratz Hist, of Louisiana, 1763): 



" One could observe pieces of rock, even with the ground, . . . and in the meadows a reddish 



