280 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 
the surface. Where a mortar bed once firmly cemented is brought 
to the surface by the erosive action of wind or water removing the 
plains marl from above it the weathering agents tend sooner or 
later to destroy the cementing calcium carbonate and set the gravel 
free. They are scattered over the surface in such cases, covering it 
to varying depths depending upon the amount of gravel in the mortar 
beds, and the degree to which decomposition has been carried. At 
almost every place where the mortar beds are prominent features of 
a hillside or terrace the surface below is covered with gravel, some- 
times to several inches in thickness. 
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS ON STRATIGRAPHY. 
It is doubtful if there can be any regularity discovered between 
the beds of the different kinds of Tertiary material in western Kan- 
sas. The mortar beds occur at all positions from the base to the 
summit, as do also the sands and the clays. It has been found im- 
possible to trace a bed of any one material very far in any direction. 
The records of the state wells adds to this difficulty rather than to 
lessen it. Neither does the assistance of paleontology lessen the 
difficulty, but it rather increases it. In Phillips county the mortar 
beds contain skeletons of the rhinoceros and other animals indicat- 
ing that they should be correlated with the Loupe Fork beds of 
Nebraska, and that they are about the oldest Tertiary beds in Kan- 
sas. ‘To the southwest in Meade county a mass of conglomerate 
which is as typical a mortar bed as can be found is rich in fossil 
horses, llamas, elephants, etc., which paleontologists class as Pleisto- 
cene fossils. We therefore have the mortar beds with Loup Fork 
fossils at one place, and with Pleistocene fossils in another, not 
only showing a lack of stratigraphic continuity, but showing that, 
after all. the so-called Tertiary of our state may be part Tertiary and 
part Pleistocene! Other Pleistocene fossils have been found in the 
so-called plains marl, as is fully brought out in the following 
article by Professor Williston. Paleontology therefore adds dif- 
ficulty to the stratigraphic problem provided we try to divide the 
Kansas Tertiary into terranes, as has usually been done If, how- 
i See almost all literature on the Kansas Tertiary, particularly Hay’s various 
ase sections and descriptions, Scott’s discussion of the Tertiary in Bulletin 
. S. A., Vol. 6, p., and Cragin’s discussion of the Meade Gravels, etce., Colorado 
College Studies, Vol. VI, p. 53 et seq. 
