16 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
A short distance south of Pauline the summit of the divide, which is 
on the Scranton shale, is reached at an altitude of 1,050 feet; thence 
there is a down grade to the village of Wakarusa. 
Wakarusa. Here the railway crosses Wakarusa Creek at a point 
Elevation 948 feet. = where the stream has cut through the shales to the 
Kansas City 78 miles. 
Topeka limestone, a ledge of which is exposed in the 
shallow railway cut a few rods north of the station. South of Wak- 
arusa the track rises from the creek valley to a rolling plain, whose 
altitude is from 1,000 to 1,075 feet. At milepost 64 a 4-foot bed of 
limestone is crossed by the railway. In the higher portions of the 
ridges traversed in the next 3 miles there are several cuts in shales, 
someé of which expose thin included beds of limestone. 
Between Carbondale and Osage there are many small coal mines 
and numerous abandoned pits and long open cuts. Several of the 
mines produce a moderate amount of coal for local 
use and for shipment to various places in eastern 
Kansas. They are from 10 to 140 feet deep, and at 
most localities the bed is from 16 to 22 inches thick. 
Some of the coal has been mined by stripping off the 
soil and débris and more or Jess shale along the outcrop, but to the 
west, as the dip carries the coal deeper, it is reached by shafts. 
For many years this field was the principal source of supply of fuel 
Carbondale. 
Elevation 1,074 feet. 
tion 461. 
Kansas City 84 miles. 
for the Santa Fe Railway, and several of the mines were worked’ — 
by the railway company until other sources of coal were developed. 
In 1893 and 1894 the annual output exceeded 200,000 tons. The 
coal’ is bituminous, and although it is not all of high quality this — 
thin bed has been worked with considerable profit. It is known to 
extend to Lebo and Neosho Rapids, and it is only about 250 feet 
deep at Emporia. 
About the coal mines from Carbondale to Osage are heaps of gray — 
shale excavated in sinking shafts and extending the coal chambers. 
In places where this débris has contained considerable coal waste it — 
has been ignited at times by spontaneous combustion and the heat 2 
has given it a bright-red color, which makes the piles conspicuous. 
The Howard limestone is traversed a short distance north of milepost . 
1 Coal consists of carbonaceous mate- 
Seid Ts 
se SSP 5 Dee a, See ee! OO RR Cen eee <a eS 
ia mage ile a. OR ait) Soha Mahan Cee Mae Se CR pha: SOA Slee RL COT PM Gh cA hed) Pa eT OD aS Lo ee ea ee oa Pi eM me yy hn oe fee ee eae tn Ot tee 
below the Howard limestone, which is — 
rial, originally trees and other plants of 
various kinds, that accumulated in 
swamps and was finally covered by mud. 
At the time when such material accumu- 
lated in this region it was an area of wide- 
spread swamps and morasses with rank 
vegetation. Later it was covered by the 
sea, in which were deposited the materials 
now represented by the limestone and 
shale. The coal bed is only a few feet 
therefore a guide to the location of the 
The limestone and shale in this 
region are of the same age (Carboniferous) 
as the rocks which contain the great de- 
posits of coal in Pennsylvania, West Vir- 
ginia, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, 
and Alabama. Here, however, deeper 
water prevailed for much of the time and 
conditions favorable to the accumulation — 
of coal a i S3 .. 4 ie 4 Bs 1 neal 
coal. 
v 
