268 The American Geologist. April, 1393 
Mississippi is not so liigh by 100 to 200 feet as the Ozavks are 
twenty miles south of tlie Missouri. Mr. Nason's section at the 
mouth of the Gasconade shows that the bluffs there are 150 feet 
higher than the dividing ridge near Montgomer}' City, and the 
country near Arlington and Rolla is as much as 300 feet higher. 
At Arlington the rocks belong to the Ozark series. At Jones- 
burgh to the Lower Carboniferous. 
ON A NATURAL FORMATION OF PELLETS. 
By J. A. Udden, Rock Island, 111. 
In McPherson county, Kansas, there are several outcrops of a 
stratum of volcanic dust occurring in presumably Pleistocene beds. 
(See Megalonyx Beds in Kansas, American Geologist, Vol. vii, 
p. 340). At the time this material fell, it settled in water on the 
bottom of a lake or of a wide river, w^hich here occupied a de- 
pression running north and south. In one of the places where 
the dust is now exposed, it is seen to have fallen among sedges, 
or similar growths, in shallow water, and it was agitated b}- the 
waves, as it settled, thus becoming decidedly ripple-bedded. At 
this place there are to be seen imbedded, scattered in the deposit, 
a number of round white pellets. I purpose to describe these 
little structures, and to suggest an explanation of their formation. 
The deposit here is about five feet in thickness. The lower 
part of it is penetrated b}' hollow casts of sedges, which extend 
from one to two feet upwards from the bottom. Above this the 
deposit is ripple-bedded for at least two feet, but uppermost this 
bedding grows indistinct. The pellets are found in greatest abund- 
ance in the ripple-bedded horizon and none have been seen in the 
lower part of the dust. They are mostly lodged in the thickest 
layers. (Fig. 1.) 
The pellets are spherical or lenticular bodies, ranging in size 
from one to five millimeters in diameter.* They are composed of 
*In 32 specimens taken promiscuously, the different sizes are repre- 
sented as follows : 
Between .5 mm and 1 mm in diameter, 1 specimen. 
1 " " 1.5 " " " 5 
1.5 " " 2 " '^ •' 9 
2 " " 2.5 " " " 8 " 
" 2.5 " " 3 " " " 6 
3 " " 3.5 " " " 2 
3.5 " " 4 " " " 
4 " " 4.5 " " " 1 " 
