118 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 
“DAKOTA” SANDSTONE OF SOUTHERN KANSAS. 
Capping the hills at several localities is a coarse-grained, brown- 
ish to blackish ferruginous sandstone, containing fragments of 
plants which in southern Kansas has generally been referred to the 
Dakota formation on account of its lithologic resemblance to the 
sandstones of this formation in central Kansas. The writer is not 
aware that any fossil plants characteristic of the Dakota north of 
the Arkansas river have been found in this region, and in correlating 
this sandstone doubtfully with the Dakota simply follows the gen- 
eral custom! The writer, however, understands that Professor 
Cragin in his last paper has proposed for this ledge the name Reeder 
(Dakota?) sandstone from its occurrence over the Kiowa shales in 
the upper part of the Medicine Lodge river valley near the Reeder 
post-office, Kiowa county. Some of the best outcrops of this sand- 
stone noted by the writer are on top of Blue Cut Mound southwest 
ot Belvidere; on the southern side of the Medicine Lodge river in 
the eastern part of Reeder township and on the head waters of Hack- 
berry. West Branch, Bear and Little Sandy creeks, Clark county. 
DISTRIBUTION, 
On the accompanying map, Plate XLIV, the distribution of the 
Somanche series in southern Kansas as determined by the work of 
the summer of 1896 is given. In tracing the outcrops of this series 
the author was assisted by Messrs. J. W. Beede and C. N. Gould in 
the eastern part, and by the latter in Clark county. In part of the re- 
gion the series forms a mass of rocks of considerable thickness, vary- 
ing from about 25 to 160 feet, which is readily enough shown on the 
map. For the remainder of the distance the thickness varies from less 
than 25 feet to nothing and for a part of this area is indicated on the 
map by simply a line. The great denudation inclosing Mesozoic or 
early Tertiary time swept away all or nearly all of the Cretaceous in 
a portion of this region so that the Tertiary rocks rest upon simply a 
thin bank of Cretaceous, or where the Cretaceous was completely 
eroded, upon the underlying Red-Beds. 
By referring to the map it will be seen that in the east, the series 
1 EF. W. Cragin: Bulletin Washburn College Laboratory Natural History, Vol. 
II, pp. 76, 77, where the Dakota is mentioned as capping the Blue Cut Mound and 
Upper West Bear creek sections. Hill: American Journal Science, 3d Series, Vol. 
L, p. 210, gives the ‘‘Dakota’”’ near the top of Blue Cut Mound. 
