122 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



eight inches wide, and fifteen inches high; Testudo 

 orthopygia Cope called it. The back of the cara- 

 pace was sticking out of a ledge of grey sandstone. 

 We applied our picks, and soon had the specimen 

 collected. (Fig. 22.) 



Now began an extremely interesting search for 

 this new fauna in Kansas. The rocks in this part of 

 the state usually consist of gray sand cemented to- 

 gether with washed chalk and soluble silica. The 

 foundation on which these beds were deposited is 

 the Niobrara Group of the Cretaceous. The river 

 beds were cut in this soft lime, and later on the wash 

 of the land mingled the whiting with the sand and 

 gravel which the streams brought down from the 

 mountains. The tops of the hills are capped with 

 this conglomerate gray sandstone in ledges many 

 feet in thickness, and as the materials composing it 

 easily disintegrate, great masses of it lie at the bases 

 of the cliffs, resembling old mortar. I called them 

 mortar beds, and the stratigraphers have adopted the 

 name. Indeed, they are mortar beds not only in 

 name, from a fancied resemblance to mortar, but in 

 fact, as all the early settlers can testify. It was no 

 trouble for them to find beds so soft that the material 

 could easily be dug out, and when mixed with water 

 and spread with trowels over the inside walls of a 

 sod house, it made a very comfortable home. When 

 it comes to comfort, the settlers of the short-grass 



