274 KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



The remarkable feature of this group of limestones is their great 

 lateral extent, great when expressed in miles, but after all no greater 

 than is common for the limestone systems in Kansas. The outcrop- 

 pings of the two Oswego limestones are usually about the same. 

 They form cappings to the high bluffs on which Oswego rests, and 

 mark the row of hills southward to the south line of the state. To 

 the northeast this outcropping forms an irregular line which crosses 

 the Neosho river near Oswego, and from there passes about two miles 

 north of Cherokee, half way between Girard and Pittsburg, and 

 beyond to the state line. In many places they are cut through by 

 ravines or broad valleys, so that the Cherokee shales are often 

 exposed over considerable areas to the northwest of this line of out- 

 cropping. 



The Oswego limestones are rarely if ever horizontal, and their dip 

 is very irregular. They abound in small and low anticlinals and 

 synclinals. They are not conformable with the Pawnee limestone 

 above, and frequently the lack of conformity is due to irregularities 

 in the Oswego limestone. 



The line of outcropping of the Pawnee limestone is in general 

 parallel with those of the Oswego limestones. It crosses the east 

 state line south of Fort Scott, passes near Englevale, then north of 

 Girard four or five miles, just east of Brazilton a mile, and from there 

 to the southwest until the escarpment which marks it disappears. It 

 should come in not far from Stover. Possibly the well here, the 

 record of which gave the Oswego limestone 21 and 24 feet in thick- 

 ness, struck it and confounded it with the other limestones. At 

 Mound Valley it is seen to be below the heavy shale bed which lies 

 between Altamont and Stover. 



Above the Pawnee limestone are the Pleasanton shales, which in 

 places approach 200 feet in thickness. They are different from the 

 Cherokee shales in one important particular; their lateral extent ap- 

 parently is not nearly so remarkable. Their greatest thickness is 

 towards the southwest, while to the northeast in the vicinity of 

 Fontana, and from there northward, they are reduced to only a few 

 feet in thickness. At Boicourt, only twenty miles south of Fontana, 

 they are over 200 feet thick. South of this at Pleasanton they are 

 hardly so thick, but increase to the southwest, and maintain their 

 thickness quite well to beyond the state line south of Altamont. 



The Pleasanton shales contain two or more coal seams which are of 

 sufficient extent to have considerable commercial importance, the 

 most notable of which is the one mined at Pleasanton and Boicourt. 

 The total amount of coal which they carry is hard to estimate, but 

 there are many reasons for believing that in the aggregate they are 



