PROSSER. | The Upper Permian. 85 
ten miles, in the early morning sunlight they form a landscape of 
striking beauty which once seen will never be forgotten. The red- 
dish color of the steep sides of the hills whose walls suggest gigantic 
fortifications, is clearly visible, while the top of the hills appears in 
the hazy distance like a great table land. This scene has been forci- 
bly described by Professor Cragin as follows: “If on the road from 
Harper to Medicine Lodge, the traveler finds himself looking west- 
ward across the valley of the Medicine Lodge river on one of those 
enchanting days for which southern Kansas yields the palm to no 
other locality, the autumn air being tinged with just enough of haze 
to purple the remoter vistas of the ruddy landscape | 
‘The splendor falls on castle walls’ 
which rear themselves seemingly as low mountains or buttressed 
escarpments of a table land crowning the further incline of the 
valley and bounding a considerable part of the western horizon.’?! 
An earlier brief, graphic description of this region was published 
by Professor Hay in Harper’s Magazine accompanied by a picture 
giving a characteristic view of several of the hills, or more accurately 
buttes. Professor Hay said: “A geological series of rocks, termed 
provisionally Jura-Trias, has been laid bare by immense erosion, and 
carved into the most fantastic forms of capped pinacles, mansard- 
roofs, and frowning precipices. . . . Arenaceous limestones 
[sic.], of a dull red or rich brown, are alternated with beds of red 
clay or greenish shale glistening with crystals of selenite, and in the 
precipitous fronts banded with white satin spar for hundreds of 
vards continuously. Near the top, a massive layer of white gypsum, 
from eight to cighteen feet thick, makes a prominent ledge, for 
miles, capping the red precipice with a glaring light.’ 
An idea of these hills, part of which form a mesa of some extent 
aud others simply buttes, capped by the massive Medicine Lodge 
gypsum, may be gained from Plate XIII. which gives a view of the 
Northern end of the Gypsum hills, as seen from the south. Two 
buttes are shown at the northern end of the hills capped by amassive 
stratum. ‘To the south is the main part of the Gypsum hills the 
1 F. W. Cragin, Colorado College Studies, Vol. VI, p. 28. 
2 aa New Monthly Magazine, Vol. LXXVII, 1888, p. 43. See the picture 
on p. 41. , 
