122 KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



few yards wlien it was found to drop about three feet caused by a 

 fault with an almost vertical hade. No evidence of other faults has 

 yet been discovered, yet they may exist. 



Above the Ottawa limestone a heavy system of shale and 

 sandstone is next reached, which, as has been stated, contains 

 the thin limestone system exposed at Haskell Institute. As 

 measured at Lawrence the shales are 210 feet thick. The sand- 

 stone within this system is uncertain in its extent, as sandstones 

 usually are. The University hill at Lawrence, for example, seems to 

 be composed of shale entirely excepting the limestone cap. Here 

 and there the shale assumes somewhat of a sanfistone appearance, 

 but by no means enough to admit being called a sandstone. East of 

 Lawrence less than two miles, at Oak Hill cemetery, a heavy deposit 

 of sandstone constitutes the whole of the hill, and must be 50 or 75 

 feet thick. South of the Wakarusa, four miles away, another deposit 

 of sandstone may be found which is at least 50 feet thick, and possi- 

 bly much more. Also there is a great deal of santlstone in the bluff 

 south of Vinland, along the railroad, yet only a few miles to the west 

 none of any importance can be found along the same bluff. 



.\s this system of shales is so extensive on all sides of Lawrence it 

 may be named the /.aicrcncr s/ia/rs. It is the heaviest shale bed in 

 southeast Kansas above the Cherokee shales, and therefore is rela- 

 tively im])ortant. 



In some places the Lawrence shales contain exceptionally fine 

 fossil plants, This is particularly true in the vicinity of Blue Mound, 

 seven miles southeast of Lawrence. Concretions of red and yellow 

 ochre are common at Lawrence and other jjlaces. but not in sufiti- 

 ciently great abundance to have a commercial interest. 



Coal is found in a few places in the Lawrence shales. The hill in 

 the eastern part of Lawrence has produced some coal from a 14-inch 

 vein. At about the same horizon the Bowman coal, already men- 

 tioned, is found to the south six miles aw^--. How extensive this 

 deposit is cannot easily be ascertained it is not of sufficient thick- 

 ness to pay for following it far, and as it is almost everywhere covered 

 to a variable depth it is difficult to ascertain facts regarding it except- 

 ing where it has been exposed artificially. Little importance should 

 be attached to so thin a deposit, for there is not much probability of 

 its being more valuable elsewhere. 



Above the Lawrence shales, and capping all the hills in the vicinity 

 of Lawrence a new limestone system appears which is about 10 feet 

 thick, with individual layers varying from a few inches to nearly two 

 feet in thickness. Locally the layers sometimes run together and 

 thicken so that they reach a maximum of four or five feet. This is 



