258 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 
Smoky Hill, repeated observations with a good barometer, gave 290 
feet as their visible thickness. Wells in the vicinity had penetrated 
at least 40 feet more without reaching the Fort Hays beds, making 
in all 330 feet as the total thickness at this place. From this may 
be subtracted perhaps 25 feet as the amount of dip between the 
table land and the bottom of the valley, leaving over 300 feet. There 
are many difficulties in the way of an absolutely correct measure- 
ment of the outcrops. The rocks nowhere present clear lines of 
stratification over extended areas. A slight difference in the color- 
ing or in the effects of weathering is all that can, be relied upon. 
Furthermore, there are no extended areas of denudation where the 
general dip can be measured, and, in addition, there are numerous 
local disturbances which interfere with obseravtions on an extended 
scale. 
These local disturbances are of more than passing interest. No- 
where have I seen faults of more than a few inches in extent, but 
frequently slight anticlinal or synclinal bendings are observable, the 
strata rarely dipping at an angle of fifteen or twenty degrees for a 
few hundred yards. The dip is north of east of from 10 to 20 feet _ 
per mile. ‘This general dip is evident from the much more sloping 
banks of the valleys on the south side of all the rivers. The Fort 
Pierre beds of at least 100 feet in thickness are exposed on the North 
Fork of the Smoky Hill at McAllister at nearly the same elevation 
as the Fort Hays beds fifty miles south near Coolidge. For this 
reason I very much doubt the occurrence of Fort Pierre on the upper 
waters of Butte creek, and on the White Woman. If they should 
prove to be Fort Pierre then there must be a considerable non-con- 
formity between the two formations. In the upper part of the 
Pteranodon Beds, or Ornithostoma beds as they must be called, 
since Pteranodon is a synonym of Ornithostoma,! one can not be 
unobservant of the numerous seams or veins of calcite standing 
nearly vertically. They run in all directions, but are usually nearly 
vertical. Their thickness often varies appreciably within short dis- 
tances. Often they are not more than two or three inches in thick- 
ness, though not rarely reaching a thickness of a foot. In the large 
1 Marsh in his latest published scheme of the geological epochs (American Jour- 
nal Science, Dec. 1896), applies the name Pteranodon beds to the whole of the Colo- 
rado epoch! 
