326 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



of the Neosho River, it was found not to be a mere fluviatile deposit, but to have 

 a wide geological distribution. The chert was found as far south as Oswego, 

 and as far north as Emporia, and persons reported that the same kind of gravel 

 was found in Fall River and in the Marias de Cygnes. But as the greatest de- 

 velopment occurred at Burlington, the deposit was naturally called the Burlington 

 Gravel Beds. 



Fortunately Prof. Mudge visited Burlington that summer, and we examined 

 the beds together. He said the deposit was the result of glacial action subse- 

 quently modified, and might be termed modified drift. The. sharp edges of the 

 gravel left from original fracture had disappeared in the ceaseless roll of the primal 

 ocean. Still the hardness of the chert, which struck against a file gives forth a 

 stream of fire, had resisted to a large extent the friction incident to the ocean. 

 He thought the gravel would prove of value as a macadam for streets, and as 

 ballasting for railroads. The results of our examination were embodied in a paper 

 which was read before the Kansas Academy of Science at the autumn meeting. 



Since the discovery of the beds in 187a, I have tried to bring the value of 

 the gravel as a macadam to public notice. Mr. N. P. Garretson. of Burlington, 

 sent by request a sack of the gravel to Kansas City for examination. General 

 George H. Nettleton caused several car loads of the gravel to be transported to 

 Kansas City, and put into the walks at his residence to test its properties for this 

 purpose. Mr. Robert Gillham, a civil engineer of Kansas City, was induced to 

 visit Burlington last year to examine the beds. His conclusions were so favora- 

 ble that he read a paper on the subject at the last meeting of the Kansas Acade- 

 my of Science. He estimated that Shell Island contained 1500 car loads of gravel. 

 I find the island at .low water is 150 paces in length by ninety paces in width, 

 forming an irregular oval, and the deposit is six to eight feet in 'thickness above 

 low water-mark, and may extend several feet below it. And the freshets bring 

 the gravel down the river perhaps as fast as it can be used. But the geological 

 stratum underlies the whole region, and in the extension of the Kansas City, 

 Burlington & Santa Fe Railroad, it will probably be laid bare in cuts for miles 

 where the gravel, which lies near the surface as we go west from Burlington, can 

 be shoveled immediately upon the cars. In one of the affluents of the Neosho 

 River, three or four miles southwest of Burlington, I found the gravel stratum, 

 outcropping in the banks of the creek near the surface of the ground, about four 

 feet in thickness. The railroad, I noticed, has also laid bare the gravel deposit 

 in many cuts between Burlington and Williamsburg, and Mr. James Houston, 

 Division Superintendent of the Kansas City, Burlington & Santa Fe Railroad, 

 reports a hill of gravel near the railroad track this side of Burlington. 



This gravel has been laid upon the streets of Burlington as a macadam, for 

 several years. Laid immediately upon the ground, however, it has lacked a solid 

 foundation to support the pressure to which it has been subjected in wet weather 

 particularly in the spring, when the ground is soft and porous. 



The heaviest wagons would at such times cut through the macadam, mud 

 would be transported by the wheels upon it, and the gravel has had a tendency 



