6 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, 
entering Kansas City from the east. It has walls of limestone, the 
harder beds appearing as ledges and the softer beds as slopes. It is 
floored with sand and clay to the height of about 100 feet above the 
‘present river flats. It was the valley of Kansas River at a time 
geologically not very remote, probably when the glacial ice extended 
southward as far as the city and when the valleys of the region lacked 
100 feet of their present depth. The length of time that the Kansas 
followed this course to the Missouri was not great, but it was sufficient 
to cut a channel in the limestone 100 feet or more in depth. Eventu- 
ally the water was drawn off by some small affluent of Missouri River 
at the time when that stream was cutting in its southern bank the 
great concave curve along which the larger part of Kansas City, Kans., 
now lies. 
Some of the lower slopes along the Missouri Valley in Kansas City 
and elsewhere are covered by a highly characteristic deposit called 
loess.t. This material, accumulated at a time later than the glacial 
epoch, is a fine sandy loam, so thick and firm that where it is cut into 
by streams it makes prominent bluffs. Some of it can be seen in the 
eastern part of Kansas City, extending far up the limestone slopes 
and in part covering the glacial drift. 
On leaving the Kansas City station the train rapidly descends a 
small valley leading into the valley of Kansas River. The south 
bank of this river is followed to Topeka by the old main line of the 
railway, but the trains that go by way of the Ottawa cut-off to 
Emporia follow it only to Holliday, a distance of 13.4 miles. Just 
before the river is reached the State line is crossed, at @ point 13 miles 
from the station. 
Kansas has an area of 82,158 square miles, or nearly double that 
of New York, Pennsylvania, or Tennessee. Its length is about 406 
iles, but the Santa Fe Route, in crossing it from east 
Kansas. to west, covers about 465 miles. The population of 
the State, according to the census of 1910, was 1,690,949. 
The density of population averages 20.7 to the mile but is much 
greater in the eastern part of the State and far less in the western 
counties. Kansas was part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and 
when Missouri was made a State its eastern boundary was defined, 
but for many years the region west of that line was regarded as an 
Indian country with no prospect of white settlement. This region 
was crossed by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 and by 
Lieut. Pike i in 1806. 
Geologists differ in accounting for the | may have cooperated i in its sao 
origin of the deposit known as loess, but | most of it 
many of them believe that while rivers | blown dust. 
