CHAPTER III. 
GENERAL STRATIGRAPHY. 
By ERASMUS HAWoRTH and JOHN BENNETT. 
S FAR as developments thus far have gone in Kansas, oil 
and gas are confined to the Coal Measures, although 
many are inclined to a belief the same may be found in 
deeper formations. Thus far all such attempts have proven 
failures in Kansas, while in the vicinity of Muskogee, Okla., 
some oil has been obtained by such deep drilling. This makes 
it desirable to give as complete an exposition as possible of the 
Mississippian and underlying formations throughout the area 
discussed. 
A great deal of attention has been given to the Cretaceous of 
Kansas with a hope that valuable discoveries might be made 
here. A few wells have been drilled in the western part of the 
state, some of which have passed entirely through the Cre- 
taceous and into the underlying Permian. But none of them 
have obtained either oil or gas. For this reason, the only at- 
tention given in this report to the geology of the Permian and 
Cretaceous is the general geologic map of the state printed in 
colors. 
The Mississippian Series. 
The Mississippian series includes a complex of limestones 
and shales. They are exposed over a zone irregular in width 
along the Mississippi river from near Davenport south to be- 
yond St. Louis and around the borders of the Ozark area south 
of the Missouri river from St. Louis westward to Sedalia and 
southwestward to the Joplin area and Galena in Kansas; 
thence south and southeastward, covering nearly all of the 
lands belonging to the Quapaw, Peoria, Ottawa, Shawnee, Mo- 
doc, Wyandotte and Seneca Indians, and the eastern part of 
the holdings of the Cherokees and a considerable portion of 
northwestern Arkansas. 
The strata dip away from the Ozark area on all sides. Thus, 
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