IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
241 
loess, Wisconsin drift, and in places a thin veneer of a soil, re- 
sembling and corresponding to loess. 
3. The low cuts along the M. P. railroad about two miles west 
of Nebraska City, Neb., in an undulating plain. The lower, post- 
Kansan bluish-gray loess contains an abundance of fossils. 
4. Several exposures on the plateau on which Natchez, Miss., 
stands show numerous fossils. 
5. The undulating loess-covered area surrounding Cannons- 
burg, Miss., is quite fossiliferous, as shown in railway cuts. 
6. Several exposures in and near Iowa City, notably the first 
C., R. I. & P. R. R. cut west; the exposures near the cemeteries; 
and numerous exposures along the roads leading west and south- 
west. 
7. Here may also be noted the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific 
railroad cut in the uplands just west of Davenport. This was re- 
ported upon by Professor Pratt* in 1869. He described the loess 
as under a “gently sloping prairie,” and speaks of the “horizontal 
position of the strata,”— characters which are still evident. The 
loess here contained shells “extremely fragile, but unbroken.” 
These localities and many others like them, offer a sufficient 
response to Professor Todd’s statement that “until we have evi- 
dence from the central masses of loess, i. e., deep below a flat sur- 
face, where Assuring or wash could not be postulated, there will be 
reasonable doubt.” Fissuring and wash sufficient to produce the 
deep vertical and broad horizontal distribution of the fossils in 
many of these exposures certainly cannot be assumed even by the 
wildest flight of imagination. 
Moreover there are very many localities, both along the Missouri 
and elsewhere, in which fossiliferous loess occupies the tops of 
ridges, as well as lower slopes, and the shells often appear at the 
very surface of the topmost portions of the elevations. The fol- 
lowing are conspicuous examples: 
1. The top of the hill on which the reservoir is located at Arion, 
Iowa. The hill rises 150 feet above the valley. There is no large 
stream near. (Plate II, fig. 2.) 
2. The top of the hill just south of Carroll, Iowa, along the 
wagon road leading south. The fossils here are almost at the 
surface. 
3. The top of the ridge in Hamburg, Iowa. 
*Proc. Davenport Acad. Sci., Vol. 1, pp. 96-97. Read in 1869, published in 1876. 
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