488 GEOLOGY OF THE WEST. 



with which JNTaturc has stored her ample board. The prairies satisf}' our 

 physical wants ; the bluffs feast our souls. The prairies pour in their ample 

 products until all our storehouses are filled beyond measure. The bluffs 

 lift up our homes and spread the board with ambrosial food. Lifted above 

 the earth we live nearer the gods. We drink in the royal landscape around 

 us, of which poets and painters ma}^ only dream. The luxury of a prairie 

 home nestled in the bluffs cannot be portrayed. 



At the mouth of the Kansas Eiver, Nature evidently planned a city. 

 From this point the railway system naturally radiates. But the frowning- 

 bluffs seem to forbid it. Gradually the bluffs melt away to fill the deep ravines. 

 Easily-graded streets leave terraces on either side, to be the sites of comfort- 

 able homes, while the crests, with finer views, are crowned with mansions. 

 We love homes lifted a little above the busy streets on terraced heights, sur- 

 rounded with fountains and trees, fruits and flowers. Such homes are being 

 built all along the Father of Walters — rural retreats of luxury, taste and 

 culture. 



To the great central plains of North America, the river bluffs are Nature's 

 richest gift. For ages Nature was slowly moulding them, and setting them 

 as watch-towers through all the land. They shield man irom the elements, 

 which, unobstructed, would desolate his home; they furnish the conditions 

 of a higher rural life ; they disclose rich minerals, which Nature has stored 

 in her secret chambers ; they reveal the beauties of Nature hidden in land- 

 scapes ; they furnish sites for homes of comfort and luxury; they tend to 

 lift a people, in a word, out of a dead level, giving the power of elevation 

 from which flows intelligence, culture and true refinement ; they open :i 

 fountain of living waters to slake the thirst of coming millions. The gods 

 dwelt in Mount Olympus, we arc told, in the olden times ; so here diviner 

 forms seem to descend to dispense to men their richest favors. Here are the 

 lines ot light that shall grow brighter and broader, we trust, until the whole 

 land shall be enlightened and filled with true knowledge. Here shall the 

 graces descend into human habitations, filled with sunshine and gladness, 

 as long as rivers flow murmuring to the sea. 



GEOLOGY OF THE V/EST. 

 BY J. VAN CLE^'E PHILLIPS. 



in boring the artesian well at the Insane Asylum, St. Louis, the auger 

 penetrated 3,800 feet, going through 200 feet of coal measures, 500 feet of 

 sub-carboniferous limestone, 1,000 feet of Devonian, and 2,000 feet of upper 

 and lower Silurian, and in the bottom cut a ferruginous sandstone, supposed 

 to be of the Potsdam age. 



This sandstone carries the fossil of a marine animal known as the triln- 

 bitc, and establislies the fact that at 3.500 feet in depth below the present' 



