THE LOESS OF THE PAHA AND RIVER-RIDGE. 
BY B. SHIMEK. 
The term paha was first applied to isolated knobs and ridges within what 
we now know as the Iowan drift border by McGee,* who refers to them as “loess- 
capped eminences, sometimes elongated to ridges miles in length, sometimes 
shortened to elliptical hills,” and again** describes the individual paha as an 
“elongated swell of soft and graceful contour, standing apart on the plain or 
else connected with its fellows sometimes in long lines, again in congeries, and 
locally merging to form broad loess plateaus.” 
He describes the paha as typically made up substantially of the following 
members: *** 
4 — Loess. 
3 — Loose sand. 
2— Drift. 
1 — Indurated rock. 
Of these members (1) may not be discernible, and (3) may be wanting. 
In the present paper special attention is directed to the fourth member of this 
series, the appearance of which on isolated knobs and ridges has long attracted 
attention, and has given rise to the belief that it is in some way different from 
the great body of more continuous loess in other sections of the Mississippi 
valley. With it McGee also included the loess of the river-ridges in that part of 
the state which he described as follows :t 
“The area within which this phase of the loess is developed lies southwest of 
the driftless area and northwest of the Iowa River, except about its great elbow 
* * * It includes in its southeastern portion the loess belt skirting the Iowa 
River toward and about its great elbow in northern Iowa and Johnson counties, 
the similar belt fringing the Cedar and Wapsipinicon, the upper half of the 
Maquoketa and their tributaries, and the various outliers over the divides sepa- 
rating these rivers.” 
It is evident that McGee had in mind both the loess capping the paha within 
the Iowan border, and that which covers the uplands at and near the border of 
the Iowan drift, though he included? the writer’s list of fossils collected in the 
loess near Iowa City, south of the territorial limits set by himself. 
Incidentally it may be noted that McGee’s separation of his southern loess 
from the loess of the paha and river ridgei cannot be maintained, as the 
*llth An. Report U. S. Geo. Sur., pt. I, 1891, p. 220. 
p. 307. 
pp. 222, 455, 457, 460, etc. 
t Ibid. , p. 450. 
f Ibid., pp. 460-461. 
gibid., p. 461. 
11 Ui7; 
