THE UPPER PERMIAN. 
THE UPPER LIMIT IN EASTERN CENTRAL KANSAS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
In central Kansas, particularly in Dickinson, Saline, McPherson 
and Marion counties the line of separation between the Permian 
and Cretaceous systems has been drawn quite differently on the 
various geological maps of Kansas. The greatest variations are 
found in the wide valley of the Smoky Hill river from the mouth 
of Solomon river to above Lindsborg; and the high divide between 
the Smoky Hill river and the branches of the Arkansas and the 
Cottonwood rivers which extends across the northern part of 
McPherson and Marion counties and north into the southern part 
of Dickinson and Saline counties. 
REVIEW OF FORMER MAPS. 
Professor Mudge in 1878 published a “Map showing the super- 
ficial strata of Kansas’! on which the base of the Cretaceous is 
represented as crossing the Smoky Hill river valley near the mouth 
of the Solomon river, thence extending southerly along the Dick- 
inson-Saline county line; next turning easterly and crossing the 
southern part of Dickinson county and extending two thirds of the 
distance across the central part of Morris county; finally turning 
southwesterly across the southwesterly part of Morris, diagonally 
across Marion and the southeastern corner of McPherson county. 
On the “Geological Map of Kansas” by Professor St. John in 
1883? the Cretaceous is represented as crossing the Smoky Hill 
river near Bridgeport, about fifteen miles south of Salina, (all of 
the river valley and Saline and Dickinson counties to the east be- 
1 First Biennial Report State Board Agriculture of Kansas, p. 47. 
2 Third Biennial Report State Boari Agriculture of Kansas, opposite p. 575. 
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