Kansas Salt Mine. — Hay. 67 
this will be discussed fully at some future time. One fact in 
this connection may however be noted here. It is, that near 
the top of the Permo-Carboniferous, there is a massive deposit 
of gypsum of great extent. This is not far 'below the salt de- 
posits. Near the top of the red-beds, about a thousand feet 
above the salt, in several counties southwest of Kingman, there 
is another extensive deposit of massive saccharodial gypsum. 
Still further to the west and southwest are the Salt 
plains of the Cimarron and the Meade county salt pool, 
which seems to indicate another salt horizon in the same rela- 
tion to the gypsum as the rock salt beds are to the gypsum at 
the top of the Permo-Carboniferous. The Meade county pool 
was formed by a sinking of the prairie in 1878, and though it 
has somewhat silted up since then, this year thfe southern 
side has sunk four or five feet more. The photograph from 
which the plate was made, was taken in the spring of 1888. 
The relation of certain salt marshes in northern Kansas and 
the salt pool — a natural artesian flow — called the Great Spirit 
spring in the same region, to the other salt horizons, has 
not yet been clearly made out because opportunity for investi- 
gation has not been had, but it is believed that this relation 
will easily be determined. 
Returning to the Kingman mine, there are one or two points 
of mineralogical interest. There are in the "red beds," seams 
of gypsum in the form of satin spar, much of it pure white, 
some of it stained with the prevailing ruddy hue. In the 
gray beds there are vertical seams of the same form hardened 
to alabaster and taking a fine polish, but mostly stained red. 
Between the beds of rock salt, the gray shales have seams 
of salt, vertical, diagonal and horizontal, some purely white, 
others stained red, and some of the form of satin spar, the 
fibers as usual, at right angles to the direction of the seam. 
It is suggested that this halite is a pseudomorph of fibrous 
selenite. 
[Note — The illustrations used in this paper are by the kind permis. 
Bioii of Hon. M. Mohler, secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agri- 
culture.] 
