ECKEL. ] 
KANSAS. 
169 
PERMIAN LIMESTO N E S . 
Permian rocks occur west of the Coal Measures and include a few 
Deds of limestone, which are described briefly by I laworth:" 
A few hundred feet above the Cottonwood Falls Limestone are heavy beds of the 
Permian limestone, which are usually rilled with flint nodules. These soft Permian 
imestones, carrying so much flint, are very serviceable for railroad ballast and are 
extensively quarried and crushed for this purpose at different places. The quarry 
xear Strong City has probably yielded more ballast of this kind than any other one 
■ the State, but extensive quarries are operated farther west along the Santa Fe at 
Florence and near Marion, and along the Rock Island at different points, all of which 
produce practically the same kind of stone. 
Analyses of Permian limestones from Kansas. 
Silica (Si0 2 ) 
Alumina ( A1 2 3 ) 
[ron oxide (Fe 2 3 ) 
Lime carbonate (CaC0 3 ) 
Vlagnesium carbonate (MgC0 3 ) 
1 
•j 
3 
4 
5 
5.04 
13. 60 
3. 34 
5.27 
4.25 
I. .96 
2. 55 
1.69 
j 1.07 
I 1.03 
) ■" 
93.32 
76. 16 
93. 98 
89. 93 
94.06 
1.06 
7.63 
.94 
1.18 
.62 
- 
5.51 
1.24 
91.50 
1.62 
1. Eldorado, Butler County. Mineral Resources of Kansas, L897, p. 77. 
2. Arkansas City, Cowley County. Ibid. 
|. Cambridge, Cowley County. Ibid, p. 78. 
4. Silverdale, Cowley County. C. Catlett, analyst. Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 64, p. 46. 
5. Winiield, Cowley County. Mineral Resources of Kansas, 1897, p. 77. 
6. Marion County. Ibid, 
CRETACEOUS LIMESTONES. 
The chalk and chalky limestones of the Cretaceous occurring in 
western Kansas are as promising as those of Arkansas and Texas, but 
the quarries are at present handicapped by distance from fuel and 
from cement markets. Haworth describes the limestones as follows: 6 
In the central and west-central part of the State the Cretaceous limestones have 
been quarried to a great extent. They are generally spoken of locally as magnesian 
limestone, although such a term is entirely misapplied. A belt of country stretches 
across the State, by way of Beloit and Russell, throughout which a fine layer of 
limestone is quarried and broken into pieces suitable for fence posts. Travelers 
passing from east to west along almost any railroad line in the State can notice large 
fields and pastures fenced entirely by fastening the wire fencing to these stone 
posts, which are set in the ground similar to the way common wooden posts are 
used in ordinary fencing. The Cretaceous limestones also serve many structural 
purposes in all of the cities and villages within the Cretaceous area. The rock is so 
soft it can easily be sawed into blocks and worked with chisel and hammer much 
more rapidly than ordinary limestone. This, added to its property of materially 
hardening after quarried, greatly increases its value. None of it is what would be 
called a first-class building material, yet it is capable of being used in many ways, 
a Mineral Resources of Kansas, 1897, p. 75. 
/'Ibid, pp. 75-76. 
