HAWORTH: division of the KANSAS COAL MEASURES. 295 



formations, as argued by Wiuslow, is of such a nature that we cannot 

 admit the earlier existence of the Coal Measure formations very much 

 farther to the southeast than their present limits, so that we cannot 

 account for the marginal formations in the various places where they 

 are known to exist in such widely scattered localities without assum- 

 ing that there was a relative elevation of the coastal areas rather than 

 a continual subsidence, as Keyes assumes. The Cherokee shales are 

 marginal in their character; so are the Pleasanton shales, the Thayer 

 shales, the Lawrence shales, and the Osage City shales, each in turn 

 being located continually farther oceanward from the ]:)Osition occu- 

 pied by the coast at the beginning of Coal Measure time. There is 

 a strong parallelism between this and the relative positions of the 

 outcroppings of the great geologic formations of America which are 

 generally explained on the assumption of a gradually rising continent 

 or a gradually subsiding ocean bottom. Third: — We have abundant 

 evidence, based principally upon accurate records of many deep 

 wells, that each of the great formations, both shale and limestone, is 

 continued uninterruptedly far to the west. Fourth: — Any division 

 plane of the Coal Measures which would pass diagonally to the strat- 

 ification of the formations would be unnatural and would correspond 

 in principle to passing a plain diagonally to the stratification lines 

 which separate the Silurian from the Devonian, or the Devonian from 

 the Mississippian. Both of these latter great formations have por- 

 tions within them which were marginal in origin and others which 

 were formed under deeper ocean. But no one could entertain the 

 thought of basing the greater classifications on such properties as 

 these. The different formations in the Kansas Coal Measures lie as 

 regularly one above the other as do the different formations in any 

 great geologic group in America. The fauna; of the successive lime- 

 stone systems show a gradual transition in the forms of animal life 

 from the ancient toward the more modern, which strongly indicate 

 that all of any one limestone system is older than the systems abov« it 

 and younger than those below it. A division plane which would cut 

 these diagonally would therefore be at variance with the accepted 

 rules of time classification. 



For all these reasons, and* others which might be added, it seems 

 that it is both unnatural and undesirable to divide the Coal Measures 

 of Kansas otherwise than by a method at least similar to the one 

 herein adopted. 



