THE PERMIAN SYSTEM IN KANSAS. 3 1 



horizon has not been identified. Gypsum is said to occur 

 in Stafford county, Kansas; but this may refer partly or 

 wholly to the so-called ''native lime" of the fresh-water Ter- 

 tiary, which also passes under the misnomer of "gypsum" 

 in western Kansas. 



The full thickness of the Medicine Lodge gypsum is 

 not always shown at the immediate outcrop, owing to the 

 solvent effect of meteoric water upon it. On the Medicine 

 Lodge river it is usually between 12 and 25 feet thick. On 

 the Cimarron and Salt fork it is considerably thicker. On 

 Cave creek, a small tributary of the latter stream near 

 Evansville, it has a thickness of 25 to 30 feet. 



The prevailing dip of the Medicine Lodge gypsum in 

 northern Oklahoma and an adjacent strip of Kansas is 

 nearly south, apparently a little east of south; but a small 

 area at the north seems to dip in a northerly direction. 

 This attitude of the stratum may readily be seen by a com- 

 parison of its elevations at a few leading points. The ele- 

 vations of the summit of the gypsum referred to sea-level 

 at the points here selected are more or less nearly as fol- 

 lows: (A) at Ashland, as indicated in Dr. Workman's 

 well,* 1840 feet; (B) at point of disappearance of the gyp- 

 sum in floor of the Medicine Lodge river valley, about four 

 miles southeast of lielvidere, 1744 ^^'^t; (M) at brow of the 

 wall of the mesa-like hills between the Medicine Lodge 

 river and East Cedar creek, southwest of Medicine Lodge, 

 1800 feet; (H) at Heman station, Oklahoma, near the Cim- 

 arron river bridge of the Panhandle branch of the A. T. A: 

 S. F. railway (roughly) 1500 feet; (G) at disappearance of 

 gypsum below valley of Big Mule creek near the former 

 post office of Gallagher, a point not far from the intersec- 

 tion of the lines AM and BH (and which may here be con- 



*The gypsum that was encountered at this depth in Dr. Work- 

 man's well may possibly represent the Shinier horizon; hut as no 

 other zone of gypsum was mentioned as having been met with in the 

 deeper part of this well, it is inferred that it was the Medicine Lodge, 

 and that the Shinier bed was not there developed. 



