252 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCtJ. 



investment Again, the Leavenworth record shows thin veins before the 

 main seam is readied, and some veins below. Any one of these might de- 

 velop thickness in any direction, and there would be a fair chance, even at 

 Kansas City, Kan., for a paying vein to be found at from 600 to 1,100 feet 

 deep. It would certainly pay for a boring to be made to the bottom of the 

 coal measures to determine honestly what there is to be found. 



GAS AND OIL. 



Both rock gas and oil have been found in the county and north in the pre- 

 cincts of Kansas City, Kan. Several wells — on Jersey creek, the brick yard at 

 Armstrong, and Northrup's mill, etc. — found bodies of gas that were for a 

 long time useful. It does not appear that any great effort waa made to de- 

 velop these wells or preserve them. The gas v/as found at from 340 to 380 

 feet deep. It is quite likely there is more of it. Nearer the bottom of the 

 coal measures, as at Neodesha, might prove a better horizon. The well that 

 used to flow on Jersey creek might probably be developed into a paying pro- 

 ducer of lubricating oil. 



LIMESTONE AND SANDSTONE. 



The heavy beds of limestone shown m the sections of the river fronts of 

 this county give abundance for all the purposes for which limestone is used — 

 building, lime-burning, road making, and the manufacture of cement. The 

 more argillaceous shales and limestones may be more plentiful in counties to 

 the west, and they can easily be imported to mix with the limestone here 

 when the business of the Missouri valley becomes once more a growth. There 

 is no place better situated for distributing a large cement product than Kansas 

 City. 



The higher parts of the county have some sandstones, but they have not 

 yet been sufficiently exploited to test their value as building stones. Here, 

 and in neighboring parts of Leavenworth county, they are sufficiently well 

 developed to be worth more examination as to their availability for bridges and 

 other purposes. 



CLAY. 



There are clays and clays. The usual suggestion when the word clay is 

 used is that of a surface deposit easily accessible. In AVyandotte and the other 

 counties of this district there is abundance of this surface deposit, good for 

 making either pressed or common bricks. It may be said that the supply 

 of such clay is inexhaustible by a much larger demand for several genera- 

 tions than has yet been made upon it in this or other counties. The yellow 

 deposit we have described as the loess has everywhere in it beds of workable 

 clay. 



There are, however, older beds, sometimes lying deep among the strati- 

 fied rocks of the coal measures that are more or less argillaceous. They are 

 clay shales. It is these stratified beds of greater age that have been used for 

 making 



VITRIFIED BRICKS 



for paving. These clay shales of the coal measures contain some iron — some- 

 times as concretions, elsewhere as streaks or stains; and this iron, in con- 

 nection with the silica, when properly treated in the making and burning of 

 the brick, gives the glassy luster and hardness that makes the value of this 

 paving material. There is abundance of these shales in Wyandotte county. 

 They are shown in sections B, C, D, and E (ante). In places they are some- 

 what difficult to reach; but, in the eastern part of the county, almost any 

 long slope having a hundred feet of vertical height would show them under 



