August 29, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



355 



SHORTER ARTICLES. 



MAN IN KANSAS DURING THE lOWAN STAGE OF THE 

 GLACIAL PERIOD. 



Two miles southeast of Lansing, Kansas, 

 and about twenty miles northwest of Kansas 

 City, a human skeleton was found last spring 

 by farmers in digging a long tunnel excava- 

 tion for use as a dairy cellar. Soon after the 

 discovery, the place was visited by M. C. Long 

 and Edwin Butts, of Kansas City, the former 

 being curator of the public museum there, 

 for which they obtained the skeleton. Mr. 

 Butts, a civil engineer, made measurements 

 of the excavation, which extends 72 feet into 

 the blufi'. Its floor is a nearly level stratum 

 of Carboniferous limestone; and its lower 

 part consists of debris of limestone and earth, 

 while its upper part is the fine calcareous silt 

 called loess. The skeleton was found mostly 

 in a disjointed and partly broken and decayed 

 condition, at the distance of 68 to 70 feet from 

 the entrance of the tunnel, about two feet 

 above its floor, and 20 feet below the surface 

 of the ground exactly above it. Half of the 

 lower jaw was found ten feet nearer the en- 

 trance, and a foot lower, than the principal 

 parts of the skeleton, including the other half 

 of the lower jaw. 



About a month ago this locality was care- 

 fully examined again by Mr. Long and Pro- 

 fessor S. W. Williston, of the Kansas State 

 LTniversity, and the latter wrote a short article, 

 ' A Eossil Man in Kansas,' which was pub- 

 lished in 'Science, August 1. Before this 

 article appeared, newspaper accounts had been 

 seen by Professor IST. H. Winchell, of Minne- 

 apolis, and by myself in St. Paul, which had 

 led us to plan a journey to Kansas, partly for 

 the purpose of examining the Lansing skele- 

 ton and the drift section in which it was dis- 

 covered. We accordingly visited this tunnel 

 excavation, at the house of Martin Concan- 

 non, on Saturday, August 9. Professors S. 

 W. Williston and Erasmus Haworth, of the 

 State University, Lawrence, Kansas, and M. C. 

 Long, Sidney J. Hare, and P. A. Sutermeister, 

 of Kansas City, accompanied us. Mr. Con- 

 cannon, owner of the farm, and his sons, who 

 dug the tunnel and found the skeleton, were 



also present and explained again all the cir- 

 cumstances of their discovery. 



The entire section of the tunnel, which is 

 about 10 feet wide, 7 feet high with arched 

 top, and 72 feet long, was examined; addi- 

 tional bones, as of the hands and feet, were 

 found in the dump outside; and the skele- 

 ton, in Kansas City, was inspected. Accord- 

 ing to Professor Williston's measurements of 

 the bones, the fossil man was about five feet 

 eight inches in stature, and was probably 

 more than fifty years of age, as estimated 

 from the worn condition of the teeth. The 

 skull is dolichocephalic, with receding fore- 

 head, strongly developed supraciliary ridges, 

 and a markedly prognathous face and chin. 

 Most of the vertebrae and ribs are wanting, 

 probably because of their decay previous to 

 the deep inhumation by the overlying loess. 



The skeleton lay in the upper part of the 

 earthy debris, including many limestone frag- 

 ments of small size and some as large as two 

 or three feet in length. Just above it, at an ir- 

 regular line a few inches to a foot higher, a 

 horizontally stratified water deposit of fine 

 loess begins, forms the upper two thirds of the 

 tunnel, and extends up to the surface 20 feet 

 above the place of the skeleton. The loess 

 continues up to Mr. Concannon's house, which 

 is about 100 feet distant, on a slight terrace, 

 about 35 feet above the horizon of the skele- 

 ton, and 47 feet above the level reached by the 

 adjoining Missouri river at its highest flood 

 since Mr. Concannon's settlement here 35 

 years ago. This flood, in 1881, was 25 feet 

 above the lowest stage of the river, which is 

 735 feet above the sea. The Carboniferous 

 limestone outcrops about 50 feet southeast of 

 the house, and rises gradually in a spur ridge 

 southeastward to a height of 150 feet or more 

 above the river. 



Within a quarter of a mile southward, and 

 also within a half mile to the west and north- 

 west, the loess forms uplands about 200 feet 

 above the Missouri ; and at the end of the loess 

 deposition it doubtless stretched as a broad 

 floodplain, 200 or 250 feet above the present 

 river level, across the Missouri valley, which 

 has been subsequently re-excavated. The 

 skeleton appeared to all our party to have 



