GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 207 
This review of the Kansas mineral resources should give us a higher opin- 
ion of our state. The record of the past is one in which we can well take pride, 
and it is to be hoped that this is but the beginning of greater things to come. 
New mills are now building, new deposits are now being uncovered, and progress 
is sure to follow. 
THE FLINT HILLS OF KANSAS. 
BY J. R. MEAD, WICHITA. 
Read before the Academy December 28, 1900. 
In this article I shall not attempt to give the geology of the Flint hills. I 
simply give my observations of years past in a general way. 
The so-called ‘‘Flint hills’? extend through the counties of Chase, Butler, 
Cowley, and the northwest part of Greenwood, and south through the Kaw 
reservation, where they merge into sandstone. Their summits are in range 
8 east of the sixth principal meridian. North of the Cottonwood they ap- 
pear to merge into the general] line of the uplands. The same strata of rock 
probably extend northward through Morris and Wabaunsee counties. These 
hills are the culmination and eastern end of the Upper Carboniferons formation, 
which, rising toward the east on these hills, reach a general aititude of 1600 feet. 
In Butler county the eastern declivity is abrupt, and the many ravines descend 
sharply to the valley of Fall river. From Beaumont, on the summit, to the 
mouth of Fall river, a distance of fifty miles eastward, the fall is 800 feet. The 
Flint hills are the result of erosion and not an anticline. In the general wear- 
ing down of the various strata once overlying Kansas, nature here formed layers 
of hard, solid, silicified limestone, effectually stopping the further progress of 
erosion, as did the massive gypsum which caps the hills of Barber and Comanche 
counties. This wearing away continued on either side, until the valley of Fall 
river was formed on the east and the Walnut river to the west, leaving these 
hills high in the air; yet the approach from the west is so gradual and uniform 
it is hardly noticeable. A fine exposure of this limestone is found along the 
bluffs bordering the south fork of the Cottonwood on the east, where along the 
slopes of the ravines may be seen blocks of stone ten by fifteen to twenty feet, 
and eighteen to twenty inches in thickness, on which the tooth of time makes 
exceedingly small impression. 
The name ‘‘Flint hills’? is misleading. These hills, or high table-lands, 
gently sloping to the west, contain no strata or ledges of flint. The thin deposit 
of chert, styled flint, found on the surface of the summits of the hills in Butler 
county, is derived from nodules of that material occurring in the limestone rock 
of that locality, the superimposed layers having weathered away, leaving the in- 
destructible flint nodules on the surface. These have broken into fragments by 
the action of the elements, fire being an active agent. Inthe Walnut river, above 
Arkansas City, are large beds of this broken flint, washed down from the hills 
and tributary streams in time of flood, in which are found many buffalo bones 
and skulls. Indian arrow points are often found along the railroad tracks, where 
this gravel is used for ballast. 
In the Kaw reservation, on the summit of the hills are ancient quarries where 
some primitive people obtained flint nodules from which to make arrow-heads, 
spears, and knives. To the west there is no stone in Kansas or the territory 
suitable for that purpose. 
There is no lead or zinc or other valuable metals in these hills, as many sup- 
