UPPER PALEOZOIC FORMATIONS OF KANSAS JlJ 



lower part is composed of rather soft, porous, thin-bedded lime- 

 stones and shaly layers to shales, containing near the base a 

 considerable number of silicious geodes and occasionally some 

 chert. Some fifty or sixty feet above the base is a buff lime- 

 stone containing large numbers of small lamellibranchs, as 

 Plenrophorus subcuneatiis M . & H . , Bakewellia parva M . & H . , 

 Yoldia subscitula M. & H., and other species, while about twenty 

 feet higher is another similar limestone containing large lamel- 

 libranchs, as Avicidopecten occidentalis (Shum) Meek, Myalina 

 permiaua (Swallow) M. & H., and Pseudomonotis Hawni (M. & 

 H.). A limestone containing Pleurophorus occurs in some local- 

 ities near this horizon, which also contains large chert concre- 

 tions. 



The upper portion of the formation is composed mostly of 

 thin buff limestones similar to those in the lower portion, alter- 

 nating with a greater thickness of shales and marls, and in some 

 localities contains beds of gypsum and salt. On Turkey Creek, 

 south of the Smoky Hill valley and Abilene, a conglomerate 

 stratum from fifteen to twenty feet in thickness occurs some 150 

 feet above the base of the formation, which was first described 

 by Meek and Hayden in 1859. 1 To the northwest of the Cot- 

 tonwood Falls quadrangle two beds of gypsum occur in this 

 formation in Dickinson and Saline counties, both of which are 

 worked. The lower one was named the "Solomon gypsum" by 

 Dr. Grimsley, 2 and various outcrops occur up Gypsum Creek to 

 Gypsum, as well as on Holland Creek, near Dillon. The higher 

 bed is found in Greeley township, southeast of Salina, which was 

 called the "Greeley gypsum" by Dr. Cragin, 3 while at Hope in 

 the southeastern part of Dickinson county both strata of gypsum 

 occur, separated by one hundred feet of shales and limestones. 

 In southern central Kansas there are indications of a third hori- 

 zon, forty feet above the Greeley gypsum, while the deposit in 

 the southern part of the state, about four miles northwest of 

 Geuda Springs, Sumner county, is in the upper part of the forma- 



1 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Vol. IX, p. 16, No. 9. 



2 Univ. Geol. Surv. Kan., Vol. V, 1899, p. 61. 



3 Col. Coll. Studies, Vol. VI, 1896, p. 10. 



