Lozver Cretaceous of Kansas. — Gould. 31 
The presence of fossil marine invertebrates in the post- 
Permian rocks of central Kansas has been known for more than 
thirty years. In 1867 Dr. John L. Leconte found fossils west 
of Salina a quarter of a mile south of the point where the 
Union Pacific railroad crosses Spring creek.* This is near the 
present town of Bavaria, some ten miles west of Salina. Pro- 
fessor B. F. Mudge, the father of Kansas geology, read a paper 
at the fourth annual meeting of the Kansas Academy of 
Science, October 1871, in which he discussed the age of the 
sandstone and described the finding of fossil shells as follows : 
"Three years ago" (in 1869) "passing from Salina to Harker, 
when near what is now the town of Bavaria, we picked up in 
the road some marine fossils. Tracing the specimens to the 
top of an adjoining hill we found a few acres covered with a 
stratum not over two feet in thickness rich in small shells. We 
sent a box to professor Meek of the Smithsonian Institution 
for critical examination, who found twelve species new to 
science, a full description of which can be seen in Hayden's 
recent report of the U. S. Geological Survey of Wyoming and 
adjacent territory, pages 297-313." Then follow the names of 
the twelve fossils. "These shells are in the same strata and in 
the vicinity of several deposits of dicotyledenous leaves and 
with the plants identify this portion of the sandstone as belong- 
ing to the Dakota group of the Cretaceous as described by 
Meek and Hayden in their first report." In a foot-note profes- 
sor Mudge says, "Since reading this article before the societv 
another locality has been found about four miles from Bavaria. 
They are in good preservation differing very much from the 
first locality, but have not yet been critically examined. "f Pro- 
fessor Mudge afterwards found at least two additional species 
and some other localities containing fossils. 
The discovery of the magnificent leaf-bearing beds at a 
slightly higher horizon seems to have attracted the attention 
of geologists and collectors for the succeeding twenty-five 
years. Professor A. W. Jones of the Kansas Wesleyan Uni- 
versity at Salina rediscovered the shells in the vicinity of Salina 
and Bavaria and invited professor Cragin to examine tlic 
*See Prof. Prosser's statement, loc. cit., p. 193. 
+'rr. Kans. Acad. Sci., vol. I, reprint i8g6, pp. 38-3Q. 
