160 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
the largest ranches in the two states are in this region. As examples may be 
cited the Fullington ranch, in Kiowa county, Kansas, which extends for fifteen 
miles along the Medicine river, or the Sherman ranch, in Ellsworth county, which 
contains 65,000 acres. 
In most places the question of stock water is of paramount importance to the 
ranchman. It often occurs that cattle raising in a certain locality is not profita- 
ble simply on account of the scarcity of water. There is a saying on the plains: 
‘¢The man that controls the water controls the country.’’ This problem, so vex- 
ing in many regions, solves itself in the Dakota areas. The great abundance of 
water from the numerous springs is usually adequate for all purposes. Very 
often it is not necessary to give the matter the least attention. The water from 
several springs unites to form a creek, to which the cattle resort. But if running 
water is not sufficiently plentiful, the ranchman lays a pipe from a spring on the 
hillside to a tank. Hundreds of these tanks may be noticed in the pastures of 
the two states. In not a few instances the water from a good spring will be car- 
ried to the house, through the kitchen, through the milk-house, and finally to a 
tank in the barn-yard, supplying sufficient water for all purposes. The farmer’s 
wife has the advantage over the city woman of knowing that the water she uses 
is pure. 
In former years the salt-marshes of Kansas and Nebraska were a source of 
revenue to hundreds of persons annually. It is stated that at one time there 
were several hundred ‘‘squatters’’ located on the salt-basin area near Lincoln, 
all engaged in evaporating brine. Salt for local purposes was procured in Kan- 
sas by dissolving the salt incrustations which covered the marsh, in order to 
allow the impurities to settle, and afterward reevaporating the brine. The dis- 
covery of the magnificent salt beds in the middle Permian of central Kansas has 
put an end to these cruder methods of production, and it is very improbable that 
they will ever be renewed. 
The chief economic value of the Dakota water, however, lies not in the salt- 
water of its marshes. The thousands of springs, and tens of thousands of wells, 
in the area of the outcrops of this group witness daily to the importance of water 
as an economic factor. In such states as those of the plains, where agriculture 
is and always will be the chief industry, the question of water-supply is para- 
mount; and the Dakota, being the great water holder of the plains, can scarcely 
fail of recognition in the various problems that are to be worked out concerning 
the ultimate water-supply of these states. ‘ 
PALEONTOLOGY. 
PLANTS. 
While invertebrates are rare, and vertebrates are almost wanting, in the Da- 
kota group, fossil plants are almost universally present. So common are they 
that their presence usually excites little curiosity among the farmers and ranchmen 
living along the line of outcrops. There is scarcely a hill or even an exposure of 
the sandstone in the Dakota area that does not yield at least fragments of leaves. 
These fossils are in all states of preservation, from mere traces of nervation to 
perfect impressions. They vary in size from the tiny Betulites westii, scarcely 
more than a centimeter in diameter, to the magnificent Sassafras giganteum, 
which measures forty centimeters from lobe to lobe. 
Of necessity, only impressions of these leavesremain. The vegetable material 
has long since disappeared, and the most delicate chemical tests, even on those 
leaves that seem to retain some traces of carbonaceous matter, fail to reveal the 
presence of either lignin or cellulose. Ordinarily the color of the fossil is the 
