4 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
distance north of the tracks. The Greenhorn limestone is excavated 
for building stone in several quarries of considerable size a mile north- 
west of Syracuse, all visible from the railway. 
Fort Aubrey, near Kendall, was one of the old forts garrisoned with 
troops to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. 
Syracuse is one of the larger villages of western Kansas and was 
long the center of extensive cattle interests before the range was 
broken up by homesteaders. It was settled in 1872 
by a colony from Syracuse, N. Y. The Santa Fe 
Flevation 3,220 feet. ‘Trail passes through the village, where a granite 
Population 1,126. A 3 
Kansas City 469 miles, Marker can be seen at the railway station. Syracuse 
as a picturesque hotel, named after the famous 
Cherokee half-breed Sequoyah. This Indian after being crippled in 
an accident turned his attention to sedentary pursuits. His great 
achievement was the invention of an alphabet founded upon the sylla- 
bles of the Cherokee language. This was eagerly adopted by the 
chiefs of that tribe, and in a few months thousands of the Indians 
could read and write it. Sequoyah took part also in the organization 
of the reunited Cherokees into their new Cherokee Nation in Indian 
Territory, now Oklahoma. 
At Syracuse the north side of the Arkansas’ Valley has slopes of 
soft impure limestone and shale, mostly covered with grass but in 
places exhibiting low cliffs of white Greenhorn limestone. Although 
soft and not very thick-bedded, it is useful for building stone, and 
it has been burned into lime to some extent. A part of this lime- 
stone consists of minute shells, called Foraminifera, because their 
shell coverings are full of pores or small holes. These tiny animals 
existed in large numbers in the sea from which the material in this 
limestone was deposited. Shells of, extinct sea-living mollusks, 
somewhat similar to our oysters and clams, are also included in it, 
which indicates that this area was under the water of a sea or arm 
of the ocean in later Cretaceous time. This inundation covered a 
large portion of western America, for these limestones and shales 
occupy many thousands of square miles in western Kansas, eastern 
Colorado, New Mexico, and other States on the north and south, 
and it continued for a long time.! ; 
Syracuse. 
1 Under the Greenhorn limestone is 
about 200 feet of dark shale (the Graneros) 
which is penetrated by many borings 
in the Arkansas Valley. This shale 
cium carbonate, was separated from the 
water by animal and chemical processes 
at a time when the water was relatively 
clear or had ceased d iti his 
water remained clear during the long 
time required for the accumulation of a 
deposit now represented by 50 to 6C feet 
of limestone. 
