24 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 
“has a well defined channel from the state line to the sunk well at the 
“south side of the sandhills, seven miles south of Hartland. This 
“well, which is simply a depression in the sandhills, and in coarse 
“sand, was never known to have been dry until about two years 
“ago. The level of the water, however, in this depression is usually 
“about 6 feet below the bottom of the channel at that place. 
“From the sunk well on through the sandhills is a winding channel 
“which one would scarcely think was intended for a channel of a 
“stream until he should see water coursing through it, as we did this 
“summer. The water ran past the sunk well, the usual terminus of 
“the stream in times of ordinary floods, clear through the sandhills 
“to the last ridge of them next to the Arkansas river, through which 
“ridge there seems to be no opening whatever for its escape. It 
“spread out east and west in irregular shapes, as it could fing 
“openings between the ridges of the hills, for probably a mile and a 
“half or two miles wide, and it is safe to say was in some places 
“15 to 20 feet deep, as is now made very apparent by the 
“marks washed out and the drifts left on the sides of the hills. Not 
‘a drop of the water escaped into the Arkansas, and after the 25th 
“of July when the flow down the channel ceased, the water stood 
“and remained in the channel and elsewhere in the sandhills, the 
“same as it did in the basins and lagoons on the uplands. It was not 
“long, however, in drying up in the main channel of the stream. 
“Out on the uplands, especially in basins, the water stood for several 
“weeks. In the sandhills there is water standing now (Dec. 27th 
1895) in some places. Eleven years ago there was a similar over- 
“flow of Bear creek which spread over the uplands, we are told by 
“the cattlemen who were then in the country, and ran past the sunk 
‘well into and nearly through the sandhills as at this time.” 
The Arkansas River. 
This stream rises in the mountainous areas of Colorado, flows 
eastward through a portion of Kansas, and finally reaches the 
Mississippi. It crosses the western line of Kansas at Coolidge 
near the middle of the Hamilton county line, or about seventy two 
or seventy three miles north of the south line of the state. Here 
it flows east southeast to Hartland, thirty five miles within the 
state, at which place it bends considerably to the north to the east 
