232 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



the bluffs in the form of long ridges with narrow tops, parallel to the river. 

 This is also true, though not so marked, in the- subsidiary drainage to the 

 Kaw river, Turkey creek, Mimcie creek. Wolf creek. Wild Horse creek and 

 others doing their share in varying the upland and making narrow ridges 

 of the river bluffs. 



Proportionally there is more bottom land on the Kaw front than on the 

 Missouri front of these counties; but, owing to the sandy nature of the 

 alluvia, the assumed malarial influences of bottom lands are minimized, 

 while their proverbial fertility is not diminished. The increased elevation of 

 the bottoms for the Missouri valley has been given. For the Kaw valley 

 it will be seen in these figures, which show the railway elevations in westward 

 order: Armstrong, 757; Edwardsville, 785; Lenape, 783; Linwood, 791; Fall 

 Leaf, 811. 



The gradual rise of the Stranger valley northward will be seen by com- 

 paring the elevation of Linwood, near the mouth, with that of Easton, near 

 the Atchison county line, which is 904 feet; but east and west of which the 

 thousand foot contour is reached in a short distance. The railway elevations 

 for Kansas City, Kan. (7(j0 feet), Leavenworth (770 feet), and Atchison (795 

 feet), may be noted, but it should be remembered that within a mile or so from 

 the depots these cities run up close to the thousand foot contour, and at a 

 little distance beyond the level is that of the sandstone plateau or the higher 

 limestone table-land. White Cloud is 848 feet above sea level; Troy, 1,095. 



With this general topographical introduction we proceed to the considera- 

 tion of the geology, taking, first, the details from and near the city of Leaven- 

 worth, where they have been more completely studied. With it the geology 

 of the other counties may be compared, and some probable inferences made. 



LEAVENWORTH COUNTY. 



GEOLOGY. 

 The bed-rock of this county is everywhere of the geologic period we 

 know as the coal measures. This bed-rock is not always hard rock. It is 

 sometimes a soft clay shale (commonly called soapstone) or it is a sandy shale 

 that splits into fine laminae and breaks into square or oblong blocks, as 

 seen in the cut where the Kansas Central and Santa Fe railways cross the 

 ridge in the west part of the Fort Leavenworth military reservation. Some- 

 times there is a hard black shale that will burn, which in places is salable 

 as coal, e. g., near Kickapoo. Again the bed-rock is a compact though nowhere 

 a very hard sandstone, in which wells find water and near the outcrop of which 

 there are some springs. And lastlj', the bed-rock is limestone, sometimes in 

 regular jointed beds of good building stone, but often in irregular layers 

 forming massive beds 12 to 20 feet thick. 



THE COAL MEASURES. 

 The bed-rock described above, if its covering of yellow marl and the alluvia, 

 which we will describe later, were removed, would present a very uneven 

 surface. Probably its hills and valleys would have as great differences of 

 elevation as there are now, and many slopes would be more precipitous. But 

 in that case it would be much easier to see than it is now that the various 

 rock formations lie in a regular order one upon another, and the same ledge 

 of rock often persists v/ith little change of character or thickness for many 

 miles. But though erosion of the valleys in pre-glacial times had cut out 

 vast bodies of the rock material, yet opposite sides of the same valley would 



