!(} EXPLORING EXPEDITION FROM SANTA FE 



tion were so limited that I was compelled to leave much behind that would have been 

 cit' great interest if brought in. Among the localities most rich in fossils, to which I 

 would call the attention of future collectors, are the exposures of the Upper Carbon- 

 iferous series in Eastern K;ins;is, near Uniontown, at Rockhouse, Walter's Station, 

 and Burlingame ; Permo-Carboniferous, at Dragoon Creek and Wilmington; true 

 Permian on the hill-tops east of Council Grove, and on Cottonwood Creek; Lower 

 Cretaceous at the crossing of Pawnee Fork, at Cedar and Cottonwood Springs, and 

 Whetstone Creek; Middle Cretaceous (Upper Cretaceous of former report) in the 

 valley of Red Fork of Canadian, particularly at the " Breaks of Red River." 



INDEPENDENCE TO DRAGOON CREEK. 



The surface-rocks of all Eastern Kansas and Western Missouri belong to the 

 Coal-Measures. These are exposed in many places along the banks of the Missouri, 

 and include beds of coal which are extensively worked at Lexington. In Kansas I 

 have examined the out-crops of the Coal-Measures at various points on the road from 

 Independence westward, about Leavenworth City, along the valley of the Kansas, on the 

 Stranger, Grasshopper Creeks, &c. Taken as a whole, the Coal-Measures of this region 

 present a marked contrast with those of the northern portion of the Illinois coal-field, 

 and a still greater one with those of the Ohio and Pennsylvania. This difference con- 

 sists in the much smaller aggregate quantity of carbonaceous matter and in the vast 

 preponderance of organic over mechanical sediments, i. e., of limestones over the sand- 

 stones and shales, which make up the great mass of the Carboniferous series in the 

 northern portion of the Allegheny coal-field. As I have formerly remarked, this dif- 

 ference seems to be a consequence of the fact that, during the Carboniferous epoch, the 

 region occupied by the coal-basin of Missouri and Kansas was more remote from the 

 source from which the mechanical sediments were derived, and was much more fre- 

 quently, or at least for longer periods, submerged beneath the water of the ocean than 

 the region with which I have compared it. Professor Hall has indicated a similar dif- 

 ference of structure between the northern and southern portions of the Illinois coal- 

 field, and has clearly shown how the great calcareous masses of the southern extremity 

 of this coal-basin are the records of the existence of an open sea in the regions where 

 they exist, while the coal, sandstones, and shales were accumulating on the low shores 

 or shallows bordering the continent which lay to the north! 



In my former report, I have described the progressive change which was noticed 

 in the structure of the Carboniferous series in going from New Mexico to Ohio, and 

 have shown how the great masses of limestone without beds of coal, and almost with- 

 out any mechanical admixture, were succeeded in Kansas by a series of thick, but 

 distinct!}' separated beds of Fusilina limestone, between which were thinner strata of 

 fine argillaceous shale, with a few seams of cannel or cannel-like coal; and that in 

 Ohio the Fusilina limestones, not individually, but as a group, are represented by the 

 thin calcareous bands which separate the greatly-preponderating masses of mechan- 

 ical sediment. Further examination lias fully verified tlie accuracy of these observa- 

 tions, and has confirmed in all its general bearings the theory by which the phenomena 

 were explained. It should be observed, however, that the change which has been 



