GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 155 
have a steady flow, while others, perhaps the majority, are more or less inter- 
mittent. 
There are, however, in the Dakota a number of springs, which can be ac- 
counted for by neither the sheet-water nor the artesian theories. They are 
usually located along the eastern margin of the outcrops, where the post-Cretaceous 
erosion has isolated buttes and ridges from the main body. A striking example 
may be found some fifteen miles southeast of Salina, Kan., where a narrow 
Permian ridge, half a mile wide and several miles long, is capped with fifty feet 
or more of the Dakota sandstone. At the base of the sandstone, along the east 
side of the hill, are a number of springs which flow all the year round. The 
water is evidently derived from the local rainfall on the Dakota ridge. Perhaps 
the best example of springs of this character may be found at Bond’s mill, six 
miles west of Hanover, Kan. South of Mill creek, at this place, is a steep bluff 
200 feet high, of which the upper part consists of Dakota. From the top of this 
bluff the country slopes gradually to the south, being more or less cut up by 
numerous deep ravines flowing to the east and west. At a distance of four miles 
south from the top of the bluff a gap has been worn down into the underlying 
Permian, completely isolating this area of Dakota, consisting of perhaps ten 
square miles, from the main body. Some of the finest springs in the Dakota re- 
gion are to be found in this locality. Mr. Richard Bond, who located in the 
vicinity in 1858, assured the writer that the water from the spring which sup- 
plied his house showed no variation in the amount of flow in wet or dry seasons. 
The water must of necessity come from the local rainfall. 
These facts appear to indicate that we may well look to all three sources dis- 
cussed in this connection for the water-supply of the Dakota. While itis probable 
that a large amount of water comes from the mountains, and perhaps a still 
greater amount is sheet water, it can scarcely be doubted that in all localities the 
local rainfall helps to swell the volume, and is in many places the only source of 
supply. 
FRESH-WATER SPRINGS. 
The term ‘fresh-water springs’’ is used to include all the springs in the 
Dakota in which the water is not more or less salty. While in this connection 
it has no particular reference to what is usually known as soft water, still it isa 
notable fact that the water of the Dakota is unusually free from the various com- 
pounds of calcium that constitute hard water. Not infrequently the water has 
a taste not unlike that of rain-water. This is particularly true when the stratum 
from which it flows contains no clay. 
It will be obviously impossible to mention but a very small per cent. of the 
thousands of springs which have been noticed in Kansas and Nebraska. At 
best, only a few, and those the most typical, may be referred to. In Kiowa 
county, Kansas, near the head of the Medicine river, in the locality west of Bel- 
videre mentioned as yielding dicotyledonous leaves, there are numerous springs 
in a ledge of sandstone near the base of the Dakota. These are found chiefly on 
Spring creek and Little Rocky cafion, some ten miles south of Greensburg. In 
Clark county the best springs on Hackberry, Bear and Chapman creeks are from 
the Dakota. Near the base of the bluff washed by the Arkansas river, three 
miles east of Ford City, a spring issues so close to the water that it may only be 
seen when the river is low. 
The area of the Dakota in northern Kansas is famous for both fresh and salt 
springs. In southern Ellsworth county, the creeks—Thompson, Oxide, Bluff, 
and others, which flow north into the Smoky Hill river—are fed by springs 
which issue from near the middle of the group; those at Burton’s and Sher- 
