116 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
times 200 feet high and very steep. A series of these may be seen on the south 
side of the Medicine between Sun City and Lake City, Barber county. 
Toe Dakota SANDSTONE. 
The nature of the eastern extension of the Dakota formation is well rep- 
resented in Saline county. It illustrates the outlier system of outcrop, which, 
instead of a connected front, is a system of islands separated from the general 
mass, sometimes several miles. The material of which this formation is com- 
posed is soft shales, and friable, with occasionally harder, sandstones. These rest 
upon the argillaceous shales of the Permian. The surface of the latter is quite 
uneven, and is considerably depressed in the vicinity of the valley of the Smoky 
Hill river, as is represented near Lindsborg. This depression seems to continue 
north and south, conforming more or less roughly to the valley of the Smoky Hill 
river 1n Saline county. The McPherson Equus beds are deposited in a similar 
but larger depression to the southward, which may be in part a prolongation of 
this old channel or depression. Just what this old channel has had to do with 
the present drainage system of this region is hard to tell at present, though it 
seems to have had some influence upon it.* It may indicate a pre-Dakotan 
drainage system in this portion of the state. 
It seems not impossible that this old drainage system may have connected 
with the Red Beds sea to the southward. If this is the case it would make the 
majority of the Red Beds of post-Permian age.t The topography of the region 
is peculiar to itself. The Smoky Hill buttes stand 400 feet above the Smoky Hill 
river and 300 feet above the surrounding country. This elevation is composed of 
Dakota sandstone and shales, and is practically isolated from the main outcrop. 
Still east of this there are two more islands of less height but far greater areas, 
which are separated several miles from the main outcrop. The majority of the 
large streams flow at right angles to main outcrop, while the lesser ones are mon- 
oclinal. The lesser streams cut rapidly back into the easily eroded material, and 
in time cut entirely through the divides, separating the strata into islands dis- 
connected from the main formation. But in making the great valley of the 
Smoky there seems to have been more than the normal forces at work.* At 
Mentor the valley is nine miles wide. The great susceptibility of the formation 
to erosion has caused the work of degradation to progress more rapidly and fur- 
ther than in the Red Beds. Vegetation is more abundant than in the Red Beds, 
but its influence has not been sufficiently great in comparison to retard reduction 
to any very marked degree. The streams run at their base levels, or nearly so, 
and their valleys are fairly wide, in which vegetation is quite luxuriant. The 
rainfall in this region and the Red Beds have been about the same,{ the chief 
difference being in its distribution. 
The last trace of the original plain is probably indicated by the Smoky Hill 
buttes, Iron, Soldier Cap, and North Pole mounds. The eastern portion of this 
formation is perhaps less developed than the western and shows a great diversity 
in structure and color, and is highly cross-bedded, and ripple markings are 
common. 
858588 
* See article on ‘‘ McPherson Equus Beds,” ante. 
+Since this was written Dr. S. W. Williston gives an account of the discovery of some Per- 
mian vertebrate (Cricotus collettii Cope) from Kansas which seems to correlate the lower Per- 
mian of Kansas with the Red Beds of Texas. Doctor Williston says: “Above the stratum in 
which these bones are found are several hundred feet of limestones and shales, above which 
come the Red Beds of Clark and Comanche counties, which have been variously referred to the 
Permian and Trias. That this basal Permian fauna continued throughout 800 or 1,000 feet of 
deposits does not seem probable to me, and I believe yet more strongly, what I always have be- 
lieved, that the Red Beds of Kansas are Triassic in age. » .? Kan. Univ. Quar., Vol: VI, 
No. 1, Jan., 1897, Series A, p. 56. 
t See Report Board of Irrigation Sury. and Exp., Kan., for 1895 and 1896, p. 195. 
