a 
{ia 
Haworth—Stratigraphy of the Kansas Coal Measures. 455 
tion northwest from Sedalia the Mississippian floor declines 
about 1600 feet in 150 miles, or a little more than 10 feet to 
the nile, but he gives no data regarding the inclination in 
other directions. 
The Cherokee Shales.*—Immediately overlying the Missis- 
‘sippian floor, and slightly nonconformable with it, are heavy 
beds of shale which here and there grade into sandstone. In 
thickness they vary from 350 to more than 700 feet. They 
are known to extend under the entire area within the state 
where oil and gas prospecting has been conducted, every well 
record yet examined showing them so prominently that no 
doubt can be entertained regarding their existence. At 
Oswego they are about 450 feet thick, at Cherryvale 415, at 
Neodesha 425, at Osage Mission more than 415, at Chanute 
425, at Paola 750,+ at Kansas City 427, at Leavenworth 540, 
and at Topeka not less than 700, but as the Topeka well did 
not reach the Mississippian we do not know how much thicker 
they are. The record of the Wichita well and other wells in 
the west have not yet been examined by the writer, but from 
the great and uniform thickness of the shales at the points 
named, varying from fifty to over a hundred miles from the 
nearest surface exposure of the Mississippian, it would seem 
they constitute an important geologic formation, having an 
extent oceanward from the ancient shore line as it existed 
during early Coal Measure time equalling that of other forma- 
tions of similar thickness occurring at different places in the 
general geologic column. With a thickness of over 700 feet 
at Topeka, sixty five miles west of Kansas City, where they are 
only 427 feet, it appears they are thickening westward. We 
may reasonably suppose, therefore, that they extend at least a 
hundred miles beyond. 
The Cherokee shales extend southward from Kansas into 
the Indian Territory an unknown distance, and to the north- 
east into Missouri and probably across into Iowa. The records 
of a few recently drilled wells in Missouri north of the Mis- 
souri river have been examined, each of which shows them to 
maintain their thickness quite well. Broadhead has published 
many well records and sections from Missouri, both north and 
south of the Missouri river, every one of which shows the exist- 
ence of a heavy shale bed at the base of the Coal Measures. 
Similarly one generally exists at or near the base of the Coal 
Measures wherever they occur in America, and for that matter 
all over the world, and frequently constitute the whole of the 
lower Coal Measures, although they do not in Kansas, as will 
be shown later in this article. 
* Haworth and Kirk, Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. ii, p. 105, Jan., 1894. 
¢ See foot-note, p. 454. 
