678 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



brum, that all nerve-activities below this organ are reflex, their only distinctions 

 being in the matter of complexity. Others are equUy positive that consciousness 

 accompanies all nerve-actions, while others still assert that certain organs below 

 the cerebrum — viz. : the pons Varolii, cerebellum, optic lobes — form a sensorium 

 commune where consciousness in some form appears. It is my opinion that this 

 last conclusion has not, as yet, been established or refuted. I regard it as the 

 most rational of the three in the present state of knowledge. If we accept it, we 

 must recognize at the same time a distinction between elementary consciousness 

 and the full consciousness of an intellectual operation. Many facts in every 

 one's experience bear out such a distinction. We are often conscious without 

 knowing the object or occasion of consciousness; being half-aroused, we feel 

 rather than perceive. It is possible, and from the evidence it is even probable, 

 that provision for this rudimentary consciousness is made by the nerve-masses 

 between the medulla and cerebrum. 



Whatever conclusion we adopt respecting this matter, the significant fact 

 remains that consciousness is certain to appear in connection with nerve-matter ; 

 sooner or later the question of a strictly materialistic interpretation must be faced. 

 After ascertaining the present state of the case with regard to localization of func- 

 tions in the cerebrum, the induction must be drawn as to the nature of the rela- 

 tion between nerve-matter and consciousness. Grant that this induction shall 

 be more or less a speculation, we need, I think, to remember that all reasoning 

 is speculative, from the nature of the case speculative, and that the only distinc- 

 tion between credulity and reasoning is this, that credulity is both beyond the 

 facts and contrary to the facts, while reasoning is beyond the facts but according 

 to the facts. — Professor W. R. Benedict on "The Nervous System and Con- 

 sciousness," in Popular Science Monthly for April. 



GEOLOGY AND MINEROLOGY- 



SOME GEOLOGICAL AND TOPOGRAPICAL FEATURES OF 

 SOUTHERN KANSAS. 



F. W. CRAGIN, PC.B. 



Several hasty excursions made by the writer during last summer, autumn, 

 and winter, through parts of southern and southwestern Kansas, lying in what 

 had hitherto been, scientifically, the least known region of the State, — the facili- 

 ties for making which excursions he chiefly owes to the liberal policy of the 

 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company in fostering the scientific, as 

 well as the industrial development of the southwest, — have afforded glimpses of 



