COAL MEASURES OF KANSAS. Yet 
hemiplicata, &c. The Fusilinas are a very marked feature of the fauna of all parts of the coal 
measures of Kansas which I examined. They are so abundant in some layers of limestone as 
to compose the greater part of their substance. The lithological characters which I have 
referred to as contrasting with those of eastern Coal measure rocks, consist mainly in the sub- 
stitution of calcareous beds for the shales, sandstones, coal seams, fire clays, &c., which form 
the productive Coal measures on the Ohio. The coarse and massive sandstones, so conspicuous 
in the Coal series east of the Mississippi, are here almost entirely wanting, being replaced by 
alternations of limestone with fine argillaceous shales or indurated clays. 
The coal seams are few and thin, and the coal plants, so abundant in the Alleghany coal- 
fields, are almost entirely absent. Workable beds of coal occur, however, at several points 
on our route—as near Burlingame and on the Delaware reservation. The Burlingame coal 
is of fair quality, and is mined to some extent for the supply of the country for many miles 
around. Like all the coals of Kansas which I saw, it is less hard, bright and pure, than that 
of Ohio and Pennsylvania. 
Though comparatively rare, fossil plants are not entirely wanting in Kansas, as I found near 
Easton, on the banks of the Stranger, gray shales lying between beds of F'usilina limestone, 
and containing large numbers of fronds of the world-wide coal plant, Newropteris flexuosa. No 
other genus or species was found with it. 
In our progress eastward from Council Grove to St. Louis, Missouri, I noticed a gradual 
change in the character of the Coal measure rocks—to which reference has before been made— 
viz: a diminution of the number and thickness of the limestone beds, and a corresponding 
increase in the relative importance of the arenaceous layers and in the coal strata. 
As far as Fort Leavenworth the limestones predominate, showing the prevalence of marine 
conditions over this region throughout the greater part of the time included in the Carbon- 
iferous era. Between the limestone strata there are, however, many beds cf carbonaceous 
matter and transported sediments—shales and clays—which indicate that with the periods of 
submergence, alternated shorter intervals of emergence, and those in which littoral deposits 
were made. 
Near Santa Fé, in New Mexico, we saw the first evidences of oscillations of level, which 
brought the sea bottom to the surface. Further west and south the waves of an open ocean 
rolled without impediment or interruption through all the ages of the Carboniferous epoch— 
from beginning to end. Near Santa Fé, in Northern Texas, &c., temporary islands projected 
above the ocean’s surface, and gave support to a vigorous growth of land plants. Doubtless 
contemporaneous with these islands were many others—now buried beneath the later Cretaceous 
and Tertiary strata—which once dotted the sea bordering the mainland shore. 
With the oscillations of level here so plainly indicated, the continental shore line must have 
advanced and receded, not once, but many times, from northern Iowa, where the paleozoic 
rocks have never been covered by Carboniferous strata, to and beyond the Arkansas. 
Since the preceding pages were written, Messrs. Meek and Hayden have published a synop- 
sis of the observations made on their recent geological excursion into central Kansas. Among 
their valuable notes is given a section of all the strata observed from the Cretaceous down into 
the Carboniferous series. ‘This section is principally drawn from exposures near our route, 
just where, immediately on our line of observation, the geological structure was least apparent 
and yet most interesting. Hence it will supply in part the deficiencies of my notes for making 
a comparison between the eastern and western outcrops of the strata filling the interval 
between the Cretaceous and Carboniferous formations. 
The bearing which this section has on all that has been said in this report of the geology of 
the country between the Little Colorado and Rio Grande is so direct and important that I 
take the liberty of repeating it here. . 
