294 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 
plain, the present one, would have been formed. No such phenomena 
have been observed. The present wide valley above Salina also 
somewhat opposes this view, as it is difficult to understand how the 
short tributary supposed to have captured the Smoky could have 
produced so wide a valley, while its width and depth at present 
between Lindsborg and Salina seem altogether too great to have 
been excavated since the deposition of the Equus beds. The Smoky 
Hill buttes, Soldier Cap mound, Iron mound, and North Pole mound 
register the ancient elevation of the surface of Saline county, 
and indicate the removal of over 200 feet of material consisting of 
Dakota sandstone and shales and Permian shales, from the entire 
railey, which is nine miles wide in its widest place, including Dry — 
creek valley. The valley between the Smoky Hill river and Dry 
creek is now largely covered with Pleistocene river deposits with 
occasional mounds of Permian shale rising to the surface. The 
average width of this valley is two and one half miles, over which 
the sand and clay average about 35 to 40 feet in thickness. The 
bed of Dry creek is about on a level with that of the Smoky Hill 
river, and during very high water in the latter its overflows its 
banks at Bridgeport and part of the water runs down Dry creek 
and empties into the Saline river north of Salina. 
Second: It may be supposed that at one time the Saline and 
the Smoky flowed south into the Arkansas, Joining each other at 
the big curve in the Smoky south of Salina. In this case a short 
tributary to the Solomon occupying the position of the present 
Smoky between Salina and Solomon City would have been the 
capturing stream, tapping the Saline river near Salina, and ulti- 
mately causing the Smoky to flow up the old Saline channel from 
the point of confluence of the two streams to the point of capture. 
The whoie valiey of the Saline, therefore, must have been elevated: 
above the McPherson ridge and probably would have had a flood 
plain of considerable width, while the flood plain of the upper 
Smoky would have been about the same as above given in the first 
supposition. When the capture was made the great fall from this 
supposed elevation at Salina to Solomon City would have caused a 
rapid deepening of the channel in both the Saline and the Smoky, 
and new flood plains would finally have been formed along both 
