LAST SUBMERSION AND EMERGENCE OF SOUTHEASTERN KANSAS. 565 



THE LAST SUBMERSION AND EMERGENCE OF SOUTH-EASTERN 

 KANSAS FROM THE CARBONIFEROUS SEAS, OR THOSE 

 EFFECTING THE CARBONIFEROUS FORMA- 

 TION IN KANSAS. 



E. P. WEST, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 



\^Continued.^ 



Since my paper, bearing upon this subject, was read before the Kansas 

 Academy of Science, at its recent session in Lawrence, I have had an opportu- 

 nity to extend the boundary of my observations to a limited extent ; embracing a 

 very small field of strata newer than the Permian formation. 



These extended investigations tend to confirm the opinion I expressed in 

 the paper referred to, that the wide-spread erosion in South-eastern Kansas may 

 have occurred at a comparatively recent time. These newer strata were involved 

 in it as well as the coal measures and Permian formation, and I have no doubt 

 the cretaceous (if the newer strata referred to do not belong to it), tertiary, and 

 early post-tertiary strata also. These and other facts which have been ascer- 

 tained, pertinent to the subject, would indicate the later Post-Tertiary or Champ- 

 lain epoch as the era of these occurrences. 



Near Wellington, Kansas, and in a large area of country around it, extend- 

 ing westward to Harper and Attica, along the Southern Kansas Railway, ancient, 

 modified drift is encountered. At Wellington, and many other places in the 

 country adjacent, these beds are worked for the sand they contain. Fragments 

 of the local rocks, which have been torn down from their beds, are profusely in- 

 termingled in them. The process of obtaining the sand, when mined, is by run- 

 ning it through a sieve to separate the drift gravel and fragments of local rocks 

 from it. The pits show the gravel beds to be stratified, and evidently deposited 

 by water, and being too extended for river work, they must be assigned to the 

 same agency which wrought the distinction in other portions of southeastern 

 Kansas, /. e., to water aggregated in shallow seas. Mixed in with the sand, 

 gravel, and fragments of local rocks, the bones of extinct post-tertiary animals 

 are frequently found, namely, the mastodon, elephant, bison, and others whose 

 species have not been determined. 



In the Loess deposits, bordering the Missouri River, though not so fre- 

 <iuently encountered, the bones of the same animals are found, together with 

 the shells of Helix, Planorbis, Succinea, and other land and fresh-water shells 

 identical with living species in the same locality. These remains are buried all 

 through the Loess, from near the surface to a depth of from one hundred to two 

 Jiundred feet. 



The bones of a very large elephant were found in the alluvial deposits at 



