HAWORTH: THE STRATIGRAPHY OF THE KANSAS COAL MEASURES. 283 



water. One of these is the great abundance of amphibian tracks 

 which have made them of considerable importance as museum speci- 

 mens. Years ago the late Professor Mudge purchased them by the 

 car load for Yale College and other eastern institutions. 



Above this the principal evidence we have of successive submer- 

 gences consists in the alternation of limestone and shale formations. 

 As the shales have less bituminous matter than those below it is quite 

 possible that they do not represent a period of emergency. But of 

 the various shale beds below the Osage City coal not one has been 

 studied which did not have either seams of coal or rich bituminous 

 shales somewhere throughout its.extent. These may be looked upon as 

 good evidence that each one of them registers a period of emergence, 

 or at least almost complete emergence from the ocean waters, while 

 the succeeding limestones have evidently marked complete submer- 

 gence below the ocean water. In this way we have conclusive evi- 

 dence of at least 25 alternations from ocean water conditions to that 

 of dry land or very shallow water periods having been produced 

 between the close of Mississijjpian time and the formation of the 

 Cottonwood Falls limestone, with a strong probability that many 

 more such oscillations have occurred. 



EXTENT OF MARGINAL AREA. 



If we now try to determine what portions of the Coal Measure 

 area were marginal in origin and what ones were produced in deep 

 water it would seem we are compelled to admit that the marginal 

 and deep water formations alternate with each other throughout the 

 whole Coal Measures. The great Cherokee shales were probably 

 principally marginal in their position during their formation, but 

 from their excessive lateral extent in every direction they must have 

 occupied a very broad or shallow ocean area or fresh water lagoons. 

 Equally the shales including the Osage City coals have just as posi- 

 tive markings of marginal areas in the amphibian tracks so abundant 

 within them, as has been already pointed out, as have also the inter- 

 vening shales. 



INCLINATION OF STRATA, FISSURES AND FAULTS. 



Another interesting feature of the stratigraphy of the Coal Meas- 

 ures is the relative positions of the different formations with refer- 

 ence to inclinations and dip. All of the lower formations approximate 

 a position parallel with the upper surface of the Mississippian series. 

 There is not a single instance of any marked unconformity through- 

 out the whole Coal Measures, neither is there an instance of absolute 

 conformity between any two adjacent limestone systems. There is 



