44 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
tents in the mud where the balls of hide thongs became petrified in the course of 
time. No mystery of natural formation in Kansas can be so deep but that it may 
be thoroughly cleared up, it seems, by the aid of the Indians and a cyclone. 
Others explain these concretions by calling them petrified potatoes; but they fail 
to tell us who planted the potatoes. A chemical analysis of one specimen gave 
the following results: 
Silici¢e acid... <cucncen sphere aaa 43.71 per cent. 
Barium sulphate... .. ee ee hee ee 46.60 ve 
Strontium:sulphate,. :ovyencs--e.ee 4.20 fs 
Aluminumexide.., 2.4 eee eee 5.00 # 
Ferric oxide) 05)... cscb ae ee eee sDe ms 
Potassium ‘Oxide: 22> Senses eens .20 pe 
The concretions, therefore, seem to be quartz sands cemented together by 
barium sulphate admixed with a little strontium sulphate. The specific gravity 
is 3.36. They vary in size from that of a chestnut to that of a baseball, are 
somewhat flattened, and are apparently made up of a series of plications. 
CONCRETIONS. 
BY E. B. KNERR, ATCHISON, 
Read before the Academy December 30, 1898. 
A concretion, literally, is a ‘‘growing together.’’ Taken in its fullest signifi- 
cance it is, indeed, a very broad term, and we would fird classed under this term 
all assemblages showing symmetry of structure, such as crystals, geodes, nodules, 
molecules, cells, and even life-forms. In fact, any structure which results from 
an aggregation of material about a nucleus may properly be called a concretion. 
Verily, the philosophy wrapped up in the homely proverb, ‘‘ Birds of a feather 
flock together,’’ is deep and far-reaching in its import. Could we explain fully - 
the forces at play in the formation of a snowflake, how very much would our 
knowledge be extended beyond what it is to-day. Could we tell just how and why 
the water molecules are arranged every time along the hexagonal axes, we would 
know what the atom is, what the molecule is, what ions are, what the so-called 
positive and negative electricities are, what chemical affinity is, what gravity is, 
aye, even what life is. 
This may seem to some a broad assertion, but the principles underlying the 
formation of a water crystal are the same for all crystals and all aggregations of 
crystals. But the same substances under like conditions always crystallize in 
the same forms; the structure of the molecule must therefore have something 
also to do with the crystalline form, and so we must understand the invisible 
molecule in order that we may fully understand the visible crystal. But again, 
