566 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Ottawa, Kansas, and other similar bones in an equivalent deposit near Papins- 

 ville, Missouri. At this latter place the tooth of an extinct species of the horse 

 was found in a bed of water-worn pebbles, under alluvial deposits, thirty-twa 

 feet below the surface. 



Since my paper was read one of. the students, Mr. Joseph Thoburn, has 

 presented to the University some water-worn pebbles from Marion County, Kan- 

 sas, which contain fossil shells identical with the shells of the undisturbed local 

 rocks of that county and, a iew days since, there was received, at the Univer- 

 sity, a fine specimen of petrified wood, from Russell County, sent by the Rev. J. 

 D. Parker, U. S. A. This specimen is similar to the silicified wood referred to 

 in my paper, and which is so generally distributed over southeastern Kansas. 

 But whether this specimen was found upon the surface or in the alluvial deposits 

 of that coimty is not stated. 



Near Scipio, six miles north of Garnett, there is a small patch of rocks stand- 

 ing v.ertically to the plane of stratification, having evidently been tumbled down 

 from a higher level. I am told they are sandstone, but I have only seen them 

 from the car windows while passing on the railway. The other rocks, in the 

 vicinity, are all limestone, and their stratification is undisturbed. Between 

 Scipio and Garnett, and south and west of the latter place, sparsely scattered- 

 over the surface of the country there are found small masses of flint, from one ta 

 six or eight inches in diameter, very similar to that seen in the Flint Hills, and 

 it is probable that a spur or local bed of the Permian strata, of no great thickness,, 

 was destroyed in this scope of country. 



These facts in connection with those in my former paper would indicate 

 pretty conclusively, that the denudation of southeastern Kansas and the deposi- 

 tion of the Loess along the Missouri River occurred at the same time; that the 

 submergence involved nearly all, if not all, of Kansas as well as parts of Iowa,. 

 Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indian Territory, and Texas,, 

 and, that a part of the Permian formation outlying in spurs or local beds may- 

 have been destroyed.- 



The submersion of the land was most probably as gradual as its emergence 

 undoubtedly was, for the Loess deposits along the Missouri River could only 

 have been made in still waters which were very gradually receding; and every 

 successive inch of the river, from Omaha, Nebraska, to the present outlet of the 

 Mississippi River at the Gulf of Mexico, at one time during the subsidence of 

 the waters must have been the mouth of the stream. 



The encroachment of the water began at the shore line of the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico, wherever that may have been in the later Post-Tertiary time, and extended,, 

 more or less gradually, until the country within the limits before named, at leasts 

 was under water. During this time, the rivers emptying into the seas would 

 deposit sediment at their mouths, and the mouth of the stream would recede, 

 upward, as the waters of the seas advanced. But it was during the retiring of 

 the water that the Loess deposit was given its final and distinctive character as 

 such. The recession of the water was from up the streams downward, and the 



