HAWoRTH. | Physiography of Western Kansas. 13 
on the plains or into the sandhills. Bear creek, just mentioned, is a 
good example of this. In places its bluffs are 50 feet high and its 
flood plain valley is half a mile wide. Crossing the state line from 
Colorado into Kansas it reaches eastward to a point not more than 
eight or ten miles distant from the Arkansas river, where all traces 
of it gradually disappear. Not only this, but in times of freshets 
the water of Bear creek, instead of entering the Arkansas river as 
is so frequently represented on different maps, is spread out on the 
highlands area, none of which gets into the Arkansas excepting pos: 
sibly an inconsiderable proportion which may work its way north- 
ward through the sandhills. 
Other streams both north and south of the Arkansas have similar 
properties. The White Woman on the north is another good ex- 
ample. Rising a few miles west of the boundary of Kansas, it flows 
eastward for about seventy five miles. In places its channel is 
eroded to a depth of nearly 100 feet below the general level of the 
uplands, and a flood plain nearly a mile wide has been produced. 
In the vicinity of Scott City it gradually disappears, the bluffs and 
banks on either side gradually becoming less prominent, and finally 
no trace of the stream whatever can be found. Im times of heavy 
rains large quantities of water are found in the stream which are 
einptied into a broad level basin near Scott City. The total number 
of such streams, big and little, has not been determined, but it is 
safe to say they would reach near a hundred were they all enumer- 
ated. 
Drainage in Tertiary Time. 
During early Tertiary time the drainage seems to have been 
similar to that of the present. It is probable the climatic 
conditions were very different then from those now existing 
over the great plains. The vast amount of material carried 
eastward from the mountains and deposited in the plains 
from the Gulf of Mexico northward into Canada implies a 
correspondingly greater precipitation. There are good reasons 
for believing the mountainous elevation occurred with rela- — 
tive slowness, but with considerable irregularity. The evidence of 
this on the great plains is confined principally to the character of 
the materials transported. In some places heavy coarse gravel 
