4 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN. UNITED STATES. 
which cover an area of 200 acres, handle about 20,000 animals a day. 
The flour mills have an annual output of 4,500,000 barrels. 
The high bluffs of Kansas City consist of thick beds of limestone 
and shale, about 225 feet in total thickness. The harder layers of 
limestone, 130 feet in all, crop out as prominent white or gray ledges. 
The beds appear to be horizontal, but in reality they slope (dip) ata 
low angle toward the northwest.1| The limestones and shales in the 
bluff are part of the widely extended succession of beds which underlie 
Kansas, as well as the adjoining region, as shown in the sections on 
several sheets of the route map. The materials of which these rocks 
are composed were deposited many millions of years ago, at a time 
when a large part of central North America was covered by a sea. 
The limestone consists of calcium carbonate separated from the sea 
water by various chemical reactions, in part through the agency of 
sea plants and sea animals, and the shale was a mud which gradually 
settled from turbid water. Both kinds of sediment accumulated 
very slowly, and the great thickness of the rocks into which they 
have been consolidated represents a long period of geologic time. 
formation. Inaccordance with the general 
practice among geologists each of these 
s 2 4 4 a aA ¢ 
locality 
1 These rocks are a portion of the Penn- 
sylvanian series of the Carboniferous 
system. (See table on p.ii.) Asshownin 
wes 
10” limestone (Plattsburg) ci 
| 6’ shale ,sandy(Lane) 4 aE 
| 30’ limestone (lola) 
[5’ shale, dark 
5’ limestone 
Ch 
E 20 shale and sits 
eS thin limestone 5 
[——1 1 9" limestone . 
Drum E 
[— IT 21’ limestone, & 
li >> 
= 
2 UO 
23 shale (Cherryvale) bed 
= c 
12 limestone,cherty (Winterset) | G 
, ix 
eee 4 shale (Galesbur, 
C-| |3’ limestone(Bethany Falls) 
Ji’ shale (Ladore) 
20' limestone (Hertha) 
oe 
FIGURE 1, Ranti, ag 4 ae eee Kansas City, Mo ; , poe : eit 
figure 1, they consist mainly of the Kansas | where its beds are found in typical char- 
City formation, the upper bed of lime- | acter. Some of the limestones contain 
stone and the bed of shale underlying it | impressions of fossil shells, one having 
representing the lower part of the Lansing | yielded more than 70 species or varieties. 
