THE SANTA FE ROUTE. 15 
crop out in the slopes of these valleys. These beds are of late Car- 
boniferous age and slope at a very low angle to the west. 
A mile south of Pauline the railway crosses the line of the old high 
valley through which in glacial time Kansas River flowed across the 
divide into the valley of Wakarusa Creek. This 
deflection of the drainage to the south was probably 
pokes cat ee caused by the advance of the great ice sheet south- 
ward between Lawrence and Topeka. The ice 
blocked up the older channel, which was in a general way coincident 
with that of the present valley but, as explained on page 10, at a 
higher level, for the old channel across the divide is about 150 feet 
: ahove the present river. It is marked by a broad depression and 
especially by deposits of sand and numerous bowlders, some of them 
— large and easily recognized as having been brought by the ice 
from regions far to the northwest. The relations of this stream 
deposit are not well exposed along the railway but are clearly exhib- 
ited along the stream and slopes northwest of Pauline station. 
At the time when the river passed in this direction it carried the 
drainage of the west side of the glacial ice from the Dakotas and 
Nebraska far to the north, and its volume was therefore much greater 
than at present. It cut a valley toward the east, now occupied by 
Wakarusa Creek, which, however, has deepened its channel consider- 
‘ably, leaving remnants of the old deposits on the valley sides. 
West of Pauline the land rises abruptly in a step due to the outcrop 
of a hard bed of limestone. This step or ridge is a conspicuous 
feature for the next 40 miles, the railway skirting the shale slopes and 
plains at various distances from its foot. The succession of cliffs 
due to the hardness of limestone and of slopes due to the softness of 
shale is characteristic of the eastern part of Kansas, especially in the 
drift-free area south of Kansas River. The rocks consist of alterna- 
tions of beds of hard limestone, mostly from 5 to 25 feet thick, and of 
shale, from 25 to 100 feet thick except the Lawrence shale, whose 
thickness is 200 feet. The beds all dip at a slight angle to the west, 
and as the country is rolling upland, the limestone beds rise in sloping 
ledges, usually terminated on the east by cliffs of varying degrees 
of prominence. These cliffs cross the country from north to south 
at intervals of 3 to 5 miles, the distance depending on the thick- 
ness of the intervening shales and in some places on slight variations 
in the dip. From a high point in this area can be seen the long 
westward-sloping steps of limestone and the intervening rolling 
plains and gentle slopes of shale. 
Nearly all of the area is in a high state of cultivation, aise 
large crops of grains and vegetables. The soil is rich, and a 
proportion of the rainfall, which averages 35 inches a year, comes pe 
the time when crops are growing. 
Pauline. 
