ZOOLOGY, ETC. 283 
THE NATURAL-HISTORY POSSIBILITIES OF BELVIDERE, 
KAN., AND VICINITY. 
BY C. N. GOULD. 
To the student of natural history there isno more interesting locality than the 
country surrounding Belvidere. Nestled among the low, rounded hills of the up- 
per Medicine valley, the little village is indeed picturesque. The gentle slopes 
covered with cattle, the broad, fertile valley, the rushing stream, clear with the 
sparkling water from the hills, the clumps of elms and cottonwoods fringing its 
banks ; and over all the grim old sentinel, Osage rock, standing eternal as the hill 
of which it forms a part, all combine to render the scene unforgotten. 
Here have the great men of Kansas science labored. Professor St. John, 
Robert Hay, Colonel Goss, and others who have gone to complete their investi- 
gations in the great unknown have here spent weeks in research. Chancellor 
Snow found meteorites here. Professor Cragin traveled over these hills and 
wrote his famous paper ‘‘ A Study of the Belvidere Beds.’’ Professor Smyth col- 
lected here for the National Herbarium at Washington. Professor Hill came 
from Washington, Professor Prosser from New York, and Professor Ward from 
the Smithsonian Institution. Each of these testifies to the wealth of material to 
be found in the vicinity. Doctor Williston has here found bones of extinct rep- 
tiles. Professors Hitchcock and Failyer came here from Manhattan; one to col- 
lect rare plants, the other to analyze water from the medicinal springs of the 
Indians. 
The problematic Red Beds are well developed a few miles down the river. 
Upon these the Comanche Cretaceous lies’ unconformably. This apparently 
grades upward through a series of transition beds into the true leaf-bearing 
Dakota sandstone, which in turn is covered with the Loup Fork Tertiary and 
Pleistocene. In the line of paleontology few localities yield a greater diversity of 
fossils. Professor Hill, in 1894, first found dicotyledonous leaves in the Cheyenne 
sandstone, and Professor Ward, in his two summers in the field, has discovered 
‘ scores of species; Professors Cragin and Hill have collected numerous inverte- 
brates from the Kiowa shales. Doctor Williston finds saurian, crocodile, and fish 
bones in this horizon. Insects have also been found in the shales. On the hills 
and in the Medicine valley bones of Pleistocene mammals are to be found. 
The botany is excellent. Professor Ward has found the Texas mesquite on 
the hills and the soapberry on the creeks. The ornithologist will be interested 
in such birds as the Mississippi kite and the scissor-tail flycatcher; and the en- 
tomologist will here find insects galore. 
On the Osage rock are pictographs left by the Indians, and on the canon walls in 
the vicinity may be found records engraven of deeds of daring and bravery. Old 
settlers will tell of implements and traces of dwellings found along the creeks and 
in the ravines, and over all hang the mystic traditions of Indian battles and 
cavalry raids. 
The work of a lifetime lies within the hills surrounding the valley. Much has 
been done, but more remains to bedone. Fortunate will he be who in this region 
devotes himself to the task of learning nature’s secrets. 
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