TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 251 



in the deep seated strata, we may assume that the coal measure formations 

 extend as far down under Wyandotte as in the neighboring county. 



THE LOESS. 



As in Leavenworth, the surface, except of the river bottoms, is largely com- 

 posed of the "bluff" or "loess" which forms the yellow subsoil of all the high 

 land of the county, and also is found in a few places beneath the alluvium of 

 the valleys. 



DRIFT. 



On the bed-rock, under the loess, nearly all over the county, there are 

 glacial boulders and gravel, but in no place is the deposit very heavy. It 

 may be seen up the ravines in the city, up the dairy ravine near Armstrong, 

 on the creek bed at Muncie, in the ravines at Quindaro, Pomeroy, and Con- 

 nors, as well as in the shallower depressions that hold the headwaters of 

 Wolf creek from Piper to the county line. In only a few places is seen the 

 pasty clay, or hardpan, which the glacier ground out of the terraces it 

 passed over. The marks of the glacier called striae are also scarce. The 

 writer is not sure of any. A few have some resemblance to them; but, 

 though some of the surface limestones are hard, yet water, carbonic acid and 

 iron in the loess mud have been operating so long that the surface under 

 loess is usually softened, and all markings obliterated; and where the loess 

 is gone, the weathering has altered the impressions both in form and direc- 

 tion so that certainty is scarcely possible. Striae may perhaps always be 

 scarce, but some polished surface may sometimes be revealed which will in- 

 dicate the work of the glacier. 



ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. 

 COAL. 



The surface vein of coal M^hich belongs to the sandstone plateau in Leav- 

 enworth county does not seem to have been found in Wyandotte county. 

 It is, however, quite possible that a similar vein in nearlj^ the same horizon 

 might be found in any part of the high land of the west and northwest of 

 the county. It would seem that such a vein has actually been proved in the 

 higher part of Kansas City. The erosion has been so great, both before and 

 after the deposit of the loess, that such coal will hardly be found over any 

 large area. Still, as a cubic foot of coal is just about a bushel, a few acres of 

 it IS inches thick could be valuable, if the cost of getting it is not too great. 



It is more to the purpose, perhaps, to discuss the possibilitj^ of obtaining 

 deep coal, as at Leavenworth. From what has been said, it is seen that there 

 is no actual evidence on the subject, as the records of borings have either 

 been suppressed or lost. 



In Leavenworth county and in southern Kansas the workable coal beds are 

 associated with shales and rocks of sandstone horizons. The Leavenworth 

 record shows no coal or sandstone at the horizon given for the coal at Arm- 

 strong (75 feet); still, it might be at the latter place, as the distance from the 

 Leavenworth field is enough to allow for such changes. Again, it is known 

 of many veins of coal that they extend more in their meridional direction 

 than east and west; that is, they are elongated from north of east to south 

 of west. The Leavenworth deep vein is proved to extend entirely across the 

 river bed into Missouri. If, then, a north by east to south by west line be 

 drawn from the known easterly extension of the Leavenworth vein southerly, 

 it would pass through the northwest corner of Wyandotte county, and it is 

 possible that a mine in that region would, at about 900 feet deep, be a paying 



