HAWORTH AND BENNETT.| General Stratigraphy. 73 
tigraphy as it has now been worked out and exhibited in the 
maps and drawings of this report. 
Another source of difficulty and apparent disregard to prior- 
ity may be attributed to this Survey itself. Beginning in 1898, 
a number of geological sections were made in an east and west 
direction which was strictly pioneer work. The results of 
these labors were published, giving local geographic names to 
each formation as found along each section. Some time later, 
when it was possible to begin a series of correlations, neces- 
sarily some of the local names already in print had to be 
dropped. This gave occasion for criticism, although it is cer- 
tainly the method followed by all geologists, the universal cus- 
tom being to apply local geographic names, or sometimes num- 
bers, to different formations, and later to correlate the forma- 
tions for an entire area, retaining the most desirable names 
and abandoning others. Very naturally, in our zeal to give to 
the state at the earliest possible date much detailed knowledge 
partly for use by operators in the oil- and gas-fields, here and 
there slight errors crept into earlier correlations. 
On Geologieal Divisions, 
The lowest division in the geological column here considered 
is the Mississippian. As it covers the surface of so small an 
area in the state, and as thus far there is no oil or gas interest 
in that particular area, it is thought ill-advised to attempt any 
reclassification of subdivisions, even should any be necessary. 
Therefore, the subject will be treated in a general way and the 
classifications of Shepard and Adams in Missouri and Arkan- 
sas to the east will be given. In prospecting for oil and gas 
in Kansas, the Mississippian is found only with the drill, and 
the minor subdivisions, therefore, are of little importance to 
the person who finds them only at the bottom of a six-inch 
drill hole. 
The Coal Measures proper of Kansas, that is, the entire 
rock mass lying between the Mississippian and the Permian, 
measure nearly 3500 feet in the southern part of the state 
and in general decrease northward to a little less than 3000 
feet along the Kansas river section. 
Viewed in a broad way, there is a certain variation in strat- 
igraphic properties which may be used for the purpose of 
subdivision. We find heavy Cherokee shales at the base of the 
Coal Measures, above which is a mass of limestone with thin 
