246 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



boulders — some way worn — imbedded in an ochreous cement, rests directly on 

 the shale. The morainic mass is, like the rest of the outcrop, capped with 

 loess. The boulders are of all kinds, the quartzites, greenstones and granites 

 being accompanied by a much larger proportion of local rocks than is usual. 

 There are two local limestones that are larger than any I have elsewhere seen 

 in the drift. Some of the boulders are blocks of shale that have probably 

 not been carried many rods from where they were torn out of their parent 

 beds. Some of the shale here tastes strongly of alum, and all the coatings 

 of the surfaces of the various rocks testify to the presence of iron. It is 

 said that iron pyrite cubes have oeen dug out of the spring. The whole is 

 at present choked up with recently fallen debris, but the surroundings are 

 such that after a proper analysis of the quality of the water were made known 

 a health resort here might well be made popular, as there is an -abundance 

 of shade and breezy heights, more than 300 feet above the Missouri river. 

 The surroundings of the springs previously mentioned are also favorable for 

 making them places of resort. 



Chalybeate waters, sheltered valleys, breezy uplands form a conjunction 

 desirable for the resort of those who seek health and those who are de- 

 sirous of rest. 



SOIL. 



From what has been said it will be inferred that the loess is the subsoil of 

 much of this county. This is true, and though it is yellow and in many 

 places a heavy clay, yet it is a good soil as soon as broken by the plow. It is 

 not bad for wheat, the vines \o\e it, and all trees flourish in it. 



In the Stranger valley the loess lies under several feet of black soil, which 

 probably has been produced through the change of the subsoil by long pro- 

 duction of vegetation, but there are black soils in some upland valleys — on 

 Salt creek and both the Sti'angers — which it seems hard to explain in the 

 usual way. It would, however, take both a chemical and mechanical analysis 

 to prove a different origin. Enough, however, has been observed of them to 

 suggest that possibly they may owe their origin and blackness to the breaking 

 down of the carbonaceous shales of the coal measures. So their color would 

 still be due to vegetation, but of Paleozoic time. It will need, however, much 

 and special work to determine this. Sufflce it that the soils of this county, 

 black or gray or yellow, are all fertile, and will repay culture by plenty. 



BUILDING STONES. 



The rough limestone of the "13-foot" and the similar Pilot Knob stone 

 yield but an inferior building material, though there is one layer of each that 

 is of a better quality. They will all, however, make lime. 



The two limestone layers we have called the upper and lower dimension 

 rock, on the other hand are both hard and compact and yield little to the 

 influence of frost in buildings. They can be quarried in blocks of almost 

 any size and of even thickness. The lower dimension (No. 2 of this section) 

 is only accessible in ravines and on the river south of the city. The upper 

 one in ravines to the west, on Salt creek, on the Stranger near Easton, and 

 probably on Little Stranger. In the southern part of the county there is 

 much limestone, and some of the beds cropping on Wolf creek are identi- 

 cal with strata that have been quarried at Kansas City. 



The sandstone that crops at Brighton and on Five Mile creek shows solid 

 beds in the cuts on the Topeka & Southwestern railway as well as on Salt 

 creek and near the crossing of the Santa Fe and Wyandotte railways on Wolf 

 creek, and there must be many places where it would serve well for building 



