2o8 The American Geologist. April, i904. 
clayey deposit. These facts are noted by nearly all observ- 
ers, especially Chamberlin,* Salisbury,! Todd,$ Upham,j[ and 
professor Shimek himself. |1 I could add much from my own 
observations. It is sufficient, however, to refer to one locality 
only. In Kansas the ice extended only to the Kansas river 
from Topeka to its junction with the Missouri river. I have 
been over with some care the watershed between the Kansas 
river and the Descygnes, an upper branch of the Osage river 
running nearly parallel with the Kansas and 25 or 30 miles 
south of it. But upon this watershed, and in the valley of the 
Descygnes, there are no deposits of typical loess. The super- 
ficial deposits are entirely residuary clays. 
Chamberlin and Salisbury speak as follows : — 
"We find the loess in the vicinity of the Mississippi river 
(and the same is true of that near the Missouri, Platte, and 
other great rivers) of coarser grain than at points removed 
from it. In the river bluffs it sometimes merges into and be- 
comes interstratified with layers that are a fine sand rather 
than a loess, some of them being typical sands serviceable for 
mortar. On the other hand, as the formation is traced towards 
its limit in the driftless region, it approaches more and more 
closely in character the residuary clays, seeming to be a mix- 
ture of true loess silt of foreign derivation and a varying per- 
centage of local residuary earth." 
Professor Shimek's effort to account for this by the action 
of wind to the exclusion of water is not altogether successful. 
His theory is that the material was originally brought down 
by streams from the glaciated region, and spread out over the 
broad flood-plains, where the winds had access to it, and, lifting 
it up, transported it into the interior ; the stronger gusts occas- 
ionally moving sand upon the lower bights of the margins of 
the valley; while naturally the finer particles would be carried 
farther on than the coarser particles would be. While this 
would seem partially to account for the facts, it is no more suc- 
cessful in doing so than is a certain theory of water deposition, 
and notably fails to account for numerous facts mentioned in 
♦Preliminary Paper on the Driftless Area of the Upper Mississippi Val- 
ley, by T. C. Chamberlin and R. D. Salisbury, Sixth An. Rep., U. S. 
Geol. Sur, p. 281. , , ^,_, 
fArk. Geol. 8ur., vol. 11, 1899, Report on Crowley's Ridge, p. 226. 
tMo. Geol. Sur., vol. x, p. 128, 1896. 
^Ninth An. Rep.. Minn. Geol. Sur., p. 307. 
1 1 Am. Geol., vol. xxxll, p. 366, 1903. 
