INTRODUCTION TO KANSAS GEOLOGY. 
Kkansas is a part of the great plain stretching from the Mississippi 
river on the east to the Rocky mountains on the west. It is approxi- 
mately 200 by 400 miles in extent, and should be looked ‘upon as a 
block in the great plain, constituting an essential part of it, but 
not specially different from other portions lying on either side of it. 
The elevation above sea level of the eastern end averages about 
850 feet, with Bonita 1,075 feet, about the highest point, and Kansas 
City 750 feet at the Union depot the lowest. The north and south 
boundaries have approximately the same elevation, although the 
increase in hight is more rapid along the northern side from the 
Missouri river westward, while on the southern side the rapid in- 
crease in hight does not begin until farther west. The lowest part 
of the state is the Verdigris river valley where it crosses the south- 
ern line. At the Missouri Pacific depot in Coffeyville the elevation 
is 734 feet, 16 feet below the ‘Union depot at Kansas City. The 
southern line crosses the great ridge west of Independence, the 
Flint Hills, which lifts the elevation to over 1700 feet, but it again 
declines westward toward the Arkansas river to an elevation of 
only 1066 feet at the Santa Fe depot in Arkansas City. From here 
to the southwest corner of the state the ascent is gradual, increasing 
slightly with the distance, so that for the western hundred miles 
across the whole of the state the eastern descent is from seven to 
twelve feet to the mile. The western boundary line varies slightly 
from north to south, but is between 3500 and 4000 feet above sea 
level. 
The drainage of the state is therefore to the east. Here and 
there an irregularity of surface will deflect the stream southeast 
or south, as the Verdigris river and the Blue river, or northeast, as 
with the Republican river through a part of its course, and the 
lesser tributaries to the Missouri in the northeastern part of the 
(4) 
