THE SANTA FE ROUTE. 9 
Near milepost 9 and again from a point west of milepost 11 nearly 
to Holliday the railway is on the bank of the river. At milepost 13, 
east of Holliday, there is a cliff of Drum limestone, a 
Holliday. bed which gradually descends toward the west and 
sleep seer w¢, Passes beneath the river near Wilder. Holliday was 
: ' named for C. K. Holliday, of Topeka. From this 
place the cut-off line leads westward to Emporia. This line is 
described on pages 19-22. 
Beyond Holliday the main line' follows a nearly west course for 
34 miles along the southern margin of the Kansas River flat. At 
Wilder siding the valley makes a sharp turn to the 
Wilder. southwest along the outcrop of the upper beds of the 
Elevation 772 feet. Chanute shale, which underlies the Iola limestone. 
Kansas City I miles- The course of the valley, however, was established 
long before these soft beds were cut into at this place. Probably its 
position was influenced by the ice sheet of the glacial epoch, the 
southern edge of which appears to have projected several miles far- 
ther south in this vicinity than in the regions to the east and west. 
The ice occupied the highlands north of the river, but it is believed 
not to have extended south of the present stream between the west- 
ern part of Kansas City and Lawrence. 
At Bonner Springs, across the river from Wilder, there are large 
quarries of limestone. The hills north of the river, from a point 
opposite Wilder to a point beyond Weaver, are capped by till con- 
taming scattered bowlders brought from the north by the glacial ice. 
One of these bowlders, about 8 miles north of Topeka, is 40 feet long 
and 25 feet high and weighs about 1,500 tons. In large quarries on | 
the north bank of the river opposite milepost 8 the limestones are 
worked for ballast, road metal, and concrete material. When the 
clay and till were removed from the limestone many glacial scratches 
were uncovered. They bear S. 20° E. and give unmistakable evi- 
dence that glacial ice moved in that direction across the country 
before the present valley was excavated. The rock fragments 
carried in the base of the ice scored the limestone surface. Probably 
an earlier Kansas River flowed along the south edge of the ice sheet 
and received much water from the melting ice.? 
Py a CO & a by 4} 
liz posts indicate dis- | the river flowed eastward across the ridge 
tance west of Holliday as far as Topeka, | a mile south of Wilder, for an old high- 
beyond which they indicate dist f level gravel and sand bed is found on the 
Atchison. east slope of this ridge. The river did 
* At one stage of the excavation of the | not flow long in this course, for it cut 
valley, probably while the ice extended | only a small valley through the ridge, 
to the line of the present valley at Wilder, | which forms the present divide. 
