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Home > Kansas > Kansas Stone Industry > The Geology of Fort Riley, 1896 (Page 2)
Littoral and Shallow-Water Conditions of Deposition.
The strata described above, of various texture, suggest diversity of origin. Occasionally the flaggy layers show ripple-marks, and there are univalves among the fauna that suggest a shallow sea. The higher beds also have abundance of Pecten, and, outside the district, a small Pleurophorus, that testify to the same fact. On the other hand, the uniform thickness of some of the limestones, their fine grain, and the still finer grain of some of the shales, suggest deposition in deeper water. There is no extended sheet of faunal remains like the enormous shell beds of the cretaceous epoch or the coral reefs of the mountain limestone, which indicate uniform and moderate depths over great areas. Yet, there is one horizon that perhaps suggests littoral conditions for the time of its deposit. This is the horizon of the Upper Flint beds (No. 9). Apparently, this is the most persistently fossiliferous horizon. There are numerous Producti. One bed, less limy than the others and without flints, has Producti all crushed and Hemipronites in fragments. In the thicker beds the shells are less numerous, but they are not distorted. Again, fossils having the internal structure of Producti are more numerous in these flints than anywhere else, so far as known to the writer. Synocladia and Fenestella are found both in the Flint beds and above. The Lower Flint beds (No. 5) show similar conditions, while the fossils of No. 7 are allied in the predominance of lamellibranchs to the beds above the Main ledge (nos. 12 and 13). Farther west and north the highest Paleozoic beds contain a horizon of massive and semi-crystalline gypsum, which may be regarded as certainly a shallow water deposit. Considering all the phenomena alluded to above, it would seem to be fairly established that these beds are deposited on a nearly level sinking sea-floor, the sinking being at a variable rate, allowing some beds to be deposited in water deep enough to be free from aerial disturbance and others to be laid down under littoral conditions.
The present slope of these beds, their close approximation to absolute levels, and the enormous amount of their erosion need some remarks. Within 20 miles west of the western boundary of the district under consideration, and also in places northward, and notably in a small area in the district itself, formations of Cretaceous age (Dakota) rest on the Carboniferous beds with erosive unconformity. It follows, then, that these last of Paleozoic rocks were elevated above sea-level and subjected to the action of aerial agencies during a large part of the Mesozoic time, probably all through the Triassic and Jurassic epochs.6 That they were then submerged to receive the Dakota formations upon them in northern Kansas and Nebraska to a distance much farther east than is now known in the Kansas Valley is certain from a consideration of the Cretaceous deposits yet to be described. This being so, there was since the Cretaceous submergence another period of uplift and subaerial erosion before the middle Tertiary period, and in that time the valleys were carved in their present lines and nearly to their present depth. On this subject the evidence is meager in quantity but apparently positive in quality. In one place only is a thin fragment of conglomerate that is manifestly related to, if not identical with, the Tertiary conglomerate of western Kansas, which is considered to be the Loup Fork Micene. It rests on shale below the Lower Flint ledge on the steep side of the Smoky Hill, east of Junction city, and has been exposed by excavation for enlarging the roadway at the water-mill. Higher up is a bed of the Tertiary marl, and on the same slope is a large deposit of loess; and a little to the north, and again in the Kansas and Republican valleys, the loess in places comes down into the bed of the stream, and is also found in all ravines and at heights of nearly 300 feet above the river valleys.
Plate V. Quarries on the Military Reservation above the Main Ledge.
Assuming continental depression in the Glacial epoch as the cause of the submergence in which the loess was deposited, and that this occurred only once, it would appear that since the deposition of the Permo-Carboniferous strata there have been three periods of uplift and two of depression in the entire area. It would also appear that this upper Kansas Valley region has in these oscillations of level been very gently dealt with. Carboniferous strata in southeastern Kansas show a few faults; cretaceous strata in the northwest are similarly broken; but the writer has seen no rupture of stratification in any part of the region under discussion. The folds indicated in places by the different dips on the opposite sides of the great valleys, and the greatest dips seen in a few short sections, are so small as to excite wonder that so many changes of level, aggregating a total of thousands of feet, should have been accomplished with so little disturbance of the strata. It has been remarked above that the slight average dip of 10 to 15 feet to the mile is to the north of west, and as farther east the dip is increased, it may be assumed that it is connected with the Ozark uplift, and any elevation in Tertiary times that may have affected this region-as the Rocky Mountain uplift-only decreased and did not obliterate the westerly dip. The most noticeable dip of the region, an easterly one, is seen in the railway cut at Fort Riley, and a short fold is seen in the Main ledge near the confluence of Otter and Lyons creeks, on the east side of the valley. Similar short folds are suggested rather than seen in the position of the ledges on the sides of rocky gullies where the harder beds are partially eroded.
Allusion to the existence of fragments of Cretaceous (Dakota) and Tertiary deposits has already been made. Some of the former are so very small-mere patches of gravel composed of nodules from the ferruginous sandstones-that they are not indicated on the map (Pl. I). One of them is in the roadway on the hilltop near the Catholic cemetery, southwest of Junction City. Six or seven miles west of this point masses of the dark-brown sandstones have been turned up by the plow. A more recent examination of the high-level sand dunes previously referred to revealed the fact that they are residual beds, resting on and abutting against undoubted outliers of the Dakota. In sec. 21, T. 12, R. 5 E., are two small areas of the rough sandstones in situ, both on slopes of rather deep draws, but where tall bunch grasses and blue-stem hide the rock from observation unless one actually walks on them. On neighboring parts of sections 16 and 17 the soft sandstone developed 20 miles to the northwest, on the Clay-Dickinson county line, is shown in round-topped mounds or promontories, having their elongations from north to south and their free ends to the south. All these are in a hollow of the Permian formations, the limestones outcropping at higher levels to the east. The incoherent sandstone has been preserved in situ by the amount of its own débris lying on its sides, now covered with vegetation, and to the north some of the wind-blown sand rests on Permian strata. For several miles west the soil is entirely arenaceous, and is undoubtedly sedentary on the sandstones of which it is the débris. This discovery of an area of several square miles of an outlier of the Dakota on the north side of the Smoky Hill so far east, has suggested that a univalve obtained in an arenaceous limestone on the top of the hills on the south side of the river may be Turritella from a Mesozoic rock, but opportunity has not been had to verify this suggestions, as the fossil is not now in my possession.
At the junction of the two rivers, near the military post, the beds of the streams contain gravel composed largely of pebbles of igneous rock that make up the Tertiary conglomerate of western Kansas and the neighboring parts of Colorado and Nebraska. Under the alluvium of the Republican Valley, about a quarter of a mile from the river, the new wells supplying water to the fort obtain it from a gravel of the same material. These, like patches of Dakota débris embedded in the Quaternary, are manifestly the results of the erosive and transporting power of the great rivers. But a patch of gravel with a hard layer of cemented concrete at the bottom, lying within this area, east of the ninety-seventh meridian, seems to be a fragment of the Tertiary grit of the West, in situ. It is more than 30 miles farther east than the most easterly extension of this formation hitherto noted in Kansas. In this case most of the pebbles are subangular ones, of the Flint beds of the district, with a vitreous surface, but running through the patch is a large quantity of quartz pebbles well rounded and small, with some feldspar in a limy matrix, which holds parts of it as a firm conglomerate, and there are also chalk pebbles and the hard chalk nodules characteristic of the Tertiary "martar beds." The deposit rests on the banded shales (No. 4 of the section) below the Lower Flint beds, and is within 30 feet of the bottom of the present river bed, here cutting bedrock. It is possible that the deposit is not actually of Miocene age, but it is certainly pre-loess, for a typical deposit of the loess rests upon it, and near to it and above-not above the loess-is a bed more resembling the Tertiary (Pliocene) marl of the West than it does the loess near it.
Plate VI. Bluffs in Wild Glen,
showing turret-like weathering of the Upper Flint Beds.
Moraines.-Less than 20 miles from the northeastern limit of the district under consideration what seems to be a terminal moraine of the Ice age exists on the top of Carboniferous bluffs overlooking the Kansas Valley below St. George. It is in the shape of a large deposit of bowlders, mostly of the red quartzite so common in northeastern Kansas and western Iowa. There is also on the south side of the Kansas River, southeast from St. George, a magnificent development of terminal. Moraine. It is the southwest corner of ice-land. The trough of the Blue River and the pass over the divide which the Rock Island Railway uses from the Kansas Valley to Mill Creek were probably cut or largely deepened by the waters running around the ice front which here dammed the Kansas. If the ice was 500 or 600 feet thick it would be sufficient, without assuming continental depression, to send the loess-bearing waters to the top of the Kansas-Neosho divide on the Morris County boundary, where loess is found in quantity. With depression in the ice region the ice would have been thicker. In the Fort Riley district, here treated of, are no such deposits of bowlders, but the eastern limit of this investigation is only 20 miles from the region where the bowlder-laden ice had its front. It appears to be demonstrable that the loess of this district is a deposit of the true Glacial age from the water of the great rivers of the North deflected around the ice front and reinforced by the rivers on and under the ice sheet.
Occasional bowlders.-A phenomenon of the entire period when the region was submerged in the cold sea, during both the advance and the retreat of the ice, would be the occasional floating off of bergs containing bowlders and the melting out of their load at distances from the usual termini of the ice. The positions of bowlders in loess well within the true ice region in northern Kansas admits of no other explanation, and when bowlders are found beyond the known limits of the ice, it appears certain that this dropping from wandering bergs is the true source of the erratics. Three bowlders have been obtained in the Fort Riley district. The smallest is 2 ½ pounds in weight, the largest about 10 pounds. The two smaller ones are the red quartzite; the largest is a pink granite. The smallest was obtained on Three Mil Creek, on upland prairie, in the sod; the second was obtained in loess on the right bank of the Smoky Hill, east of Junction City; and the granite was found in the loess excavated for the sewer at Fort Riley. These testify to the presence of ice in the district, however small the quantity. The comparative rarity of them in a westerly direction from the ice front indicates that the trend of the water currents was to the southeast. On a hill 6 miles south of Junction City, on the west of Lyons Creek, a surface layer of limestone has deep, definite grooves on its weathered surfaces. Similar marks are seen in a few other localities under the same conditions of exposure. They are not distinctly ice striæ, it would be proper to attribute them to the action of bergs grinding their way across the ridges on which these marks are situated. The marks have weathered edges, and if it be true that the ice of Kansas was of the first period, before the inter-glacial amelioration, it would be wonderful that any striæ should survive the weathering agencies of so long a time, and those not actually obliterated would naturally have such blurred edges as to suggest doubt concerning their origin. Such is the condition of these marks, and the writer has for a long time rejected any suggestion that they may be glacial, but it would appear to be proper to put on record the fact that marks exist.7
Loess of two periods.-The presence in loess deposits of bowlders more or less angular, such as the three mentioned above, seems demonstrative of the fact that the loess and the ice are of the same age. The ice being assumed to be that of the first Glacial epoch, it follows that the loess is also of that age. Professor McGee and others are of the opinion that the loess of the Missouri Valley and of parts of the Kansas Valley is of the second Glacial period. Within the limits of this investigation, and notably on the military reservation, there are decided differences in deposits which the observer, considering each separately, regards as loess. Some of these differences seem explicable by assuming modification of a deposit in situ by saturation and disturbance by floods of comparatively recent date, or even by ordinary percolation of meteoric waters. That some beds of loess have been so modified is manifest in railway cuts and other vertical sections, but such influences cease a few feet below the surface. But there are places where vertical sections show that an entire deposit is different from another close to it and which must have been subjected to the same influences in recent times. An example of this is seen near the mouth of One Mile Creek, where there are two bluffs fronting the river, each cut by the railway to the same depth. One is of bright-orange color and arenaceous in texture; the other is more argillaceous and of decidedly duller hue. It would seem that we have here loess of both the earlier and the later epochs together. The relative age can not here be made out by super-position, but the totality of the evidence in the district is that the brighter-colored loess is the older deposit. Of this bright-colored loess there is an abundance all through the region, from the lowest stream beds to the highest plateaus. In the more westerly part of the region, besides having streaks of gravel of the local Carboniferous limestones it has streaks and patches of the unmistakable detritus of the Dakota sandstones, and it would seem that the formation is, by degradation, the source of the coloring matter of the loess, as farther south the Triassic "red beds" have colored the loess of large areas.
Description of sink-holes.-In connection with the fact that the loess is found on the plateaus, it is well to recur to a consideration of the structure of the sink-holes which have been referred to in the topographical description. The structure of these depressions is fully revealed in the single one in section 30. It is just off the line of a "draw," in what seems to be the course of a branch draw which has an earthwork dam across it. This basin is about 150 feet in diameter, and the sink-hole is about one-fifth of that. On one side of the sink-hole, just at the top, a ledge of rock crops out, and in the bottom are many loose rocks. The diagram on page 15 (fig. 3) illustrates it.
A few rods down the main draw the principal ledge of rocks (No. 11 of the section) shows itself in the descent to the Neosho. The ravine here is filled with alluvium from the upland, and is so wide between the exposure of the Main ledge as to suggest that before the alluvial filling it had been cut down to other rocks, the Upper flints, or lower still. The bottom of the sink-hole is only a few feet above the Main ledge, and the suggestion is that under it the Main ledge is cut away, and that the under-drainage is in débris of that and the Flint beds; or it is not necessary to assume that the Flint beds were eroded out, but simply that they were cracked and the shale partings worn where the surface was exposed. The great group of sink-holes lie much higher than this one, and the rocky débris in them is probably of beds higher than the Main ledge. The appearance of the nearest outcrop to the north suggestions that No. 14 is here below the level of the sink-holes. Deep road ruts and plowed slopes show that this high Kansas-Neosho watershed is covered with loess from 5 to 15 feet thick. The underdrainage is in débris and broken surfaces of the upper Permo-Carboniferous rocks. The Kansas-Neosho divide in pre-loess times was very narrow, with rocky gorges on each side to the very top, and the filling of all these with loess high above the former ridge, to a height of which the present residue is over 1,500 feet, provided the conditions for the sink-holes, owing to the semicavernous character of the rocky débris underlying the loess.
It may be stated that 10 miles farther south there is another series of sink-holes, farther outside the true glacial area, and others again 70 miles to the north which are well within the region of undoubted glacial phenomena.
Late Tertiary and early Quaternary contemporaneous.-On the western borders of this district, and to a greater extent beyond the ninety-seventh meridian, there are beds which, by their color-more inclined to buff than orange-their calcareous composition, and the presence of calcareous nodules, seem to be formed by a mingling of the loess and the materials of the Tertiary marl (Pliocene) of the Western plains, and a few fragments are certainly remnants in situ of that deposit. The juxtaposition of these deposits suggests, as has been noted by others, that the so-called Tertiaries of the West were contemporaneous with the so-called first Quaternaries. A full examination of the superficial deposits in eastern-central Kansas will reveal much of this subject.
Late Quaternary.
Gumbo-The valleys of the great rivers contain recent alluvium, as do also the creek valleys. There is one alluvial deposit having a large areal development that requires some notice. Its position on the side of Junction City is shown in the profile (Pl. II). It must be considered a lake silt, which was deposited when the valleys were still flooded from bluff to bluff. It is known locally as gumbo, joint clay, and hard pan, though it is not the well-known waxy hard-pan of the true glacial region. The second name is description, as in drying it breaks with subcuboidal fracture, and it is a clay of a dull-brown hue. It overlies the loess on the Junction City site and elsewhere, and it underlies the sandy alluvium of the great valleys and some of the smaller ones. It represents conditions of deposition that exist now only at long intervals, when floods leave muddy waters to deposit their fine sediment in old creek and river beds. When the gumbo was laid down there must have been wide expanses of quiet waters over great valley areas. It probably had its origin when the lake waters were, on their margins, eroding the clay-shales, both within this region and far to the west among the Cretaceous formations. It is of very tenacious texture, and is very hard. Floods that wash its surface scarcely erode it, and its pebbles will roll for great distances in the streams. Its thickness varies from a few inches to several feet. It has a fairly even surface, conforming in a general way to the trend of the valley bottoms. A like deposit is accompanied by similar phenomena in the Arkansas Valley of southwest Kansas.
River alluvium; sand dunes.-The recent alluvium of the rivers-not that now being deposited on their flood-plains-is in many parts very thick, in some places exceeding 20 feet. It is cut everywhere into steep, often vertical banks, and is marked by stripes of black humus showing the various levels at which, as a flood-plan, it supported vegetation till covered by a new deposit from the overflowing waters of the river. The thickness of the deposit shows the great length of time during which the present conditions have existed, but there is no standard by which this can be measured in years. In places it rests on the loess, in others on the gumbo, and in a very few on the rocks or shales of the region. At its bottom in many places is the gravel formed of the débris of the Tertiary conglomerate of the West. The alluvium itself is mostly a fine-grained sand of quartz particles, minute and round, with argillaceous and calcareous cement formed from the degradation of the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations of the West. When exposed to the winds it is blown into dunes, but owing to the rapidity with which vegetation takes hold, there are few areas of naked sand.
Baselevels.-The Smoky Hill River is cutting into the bottom of its bed at one or two points only. At no place in this region is either the Republican or the Kansas making its channel deeper. The rivers have reached a baselevel of operations and are now cutting only laterally. The bottoms have distinct benches, but the highest are formed of the gumbo and the loess, though occasionally there is alluvium on them.
Plate VII. Red bluffs (loess), Smoky Hill River,
south by east from Fort Riley.
From the statements already made as to the position of the loess at the bottom of the great valley and of the small ravines, it follows that these valleys, both large and small, were eroded out to more than their present depth before the Glacial epoch. It would appear, then, that since the withdrawal of the glacial waters by elevation of the land the precipitation of the region has not been sufficient, with the elevation, to wash out the glacial deposits. Again, there are numerous ravines in this region not more, some less, than a quarter of a mile wide and nearly 200 feet deep, and abruptly terminating with a length of from half a mile to 2 miles. This would point to a period of climatic conditions different from the present-perhaps not a long one-in which precipitation was much greater and the erosive forces were much stronger than now. This period was pre-Glacial. Was it also mid-Tertiary, or pre-Tertiary, or both? The single fragment of Miocene grit seen in the Smoky Hill valley would suggest that to the depth at which it lay-within 30 or 35 feet of the very bottom of the erosion-the great valleys had previous to that age been cut out; that is, that more than three-fourths of the erosion was cut out in pre-Miocene time. Or, if the conditions of the grit as a littoral deposit connected with the Rocky Mountain uplift made this eastern part of it contemporary with later Tertiary time, still the erosion before must have been down to this depth.
From the present evidence it is not possible to say whether all the side ravines and creek valleys were eroded to the same depth at that time. Fragments of the Tertiary marl at no great distance suggest pre-Pliocene erosion, such as occurred in western Kansas. The absence of early Mesozoic formations and unconformity of the Dakota on the Permo-Carboniferous also suggest a pre-Cretaceous period of erosion. Permo-Carboniferous also suggest a pre-Cretaceous period of erosion. It might be, then, that, even with all these opportunities of the ages, the tooth of time had knawed but slowly into the solid body of the land until it reached its immediate pre-Glacial state. There is, however, an appearance about the ravines and creek valleys of this region that seems positively to indicate rapid erosion under conditions of great precipitation. We incline to the opinion, with some reserve, that the greater lines of erosion were cut mainly in the early Tertiary period, but that the erosive forces were at their maximum in the age immediately preceding the Glacial epoch, and that they were mainly attributable to two conditions-decreating temperature and increased precipitation.
The presence of much Dakota material in this western loess would indicate great erosion of those cretaceous formations in the loess-forming age; and the upper beds of the Permian-mostly shales and soft limestones-must have suffered much erosion in the same period and in that immediately preceding, the high prairie elevations being reduced rather than the valleys deepened. These remarks are partially suggested by conditions prevailing outside the limits of the district under discussion, but the conditions within the region are all in consonance therewith.
Correlation of Different Regions.
Probably the most valuable part of this report is the definite identification of the various strata of the Fort Riley section over the great part of the area shown on the map. And with this must go the additional fact that the main features of the section, which may be cited as Nos. 5, 9, and 11-the Lower and Upper Flint beds and the Main ledge-have been identified miles away, over the divide in the Neosho Valley. Whether there is a thickening or a thinning of these strata there, or of the intervening shales, has not been worked out, but with these landmarks plainly made out the way is open to complete correlation with the strata of the Neosho Valley ad of its affluent, the Cottonwood. This work will therefore take its place as an integral part of the geology of Kansas.
The soils of the Fort Riley district are a very important part of the economics of the region. There are mainly two divisions of these soils as to position, viz, bottom soils and upland soils. These again are divisible each into subgroups as to structure and origin, thus:
| Bottom soils | { River alluvium. { Lake silts; the gumbo and the loess |
| Upland soils | { Sedentary soils. { Lake silts: the loess. |
Bottom soils.-The river alluvium makes light, warm, sandy soils of great fertility, which even in bad years have yielded crops in all this region. Some farmers point to fields on these bottom lands that have never entirely failed of a crop during a quarter of a century of cultivation. The loess is not of great areal extent in the valleys, but it forms the subsoil of the higher benches and is the best of wheat land. These bottom soils are constantly being improved by the wash from the steep slopes above them, which adds both lime and silica to the soils below. In large parts of the bottoms the original transported soils have become changed by the prolonged growth of vegetation to a rich, black humus many feet deep. On the military reservation are four series of river bottoms and some creek bottoms that illustrate all these forms of soil, which, when under cultivation, will be the most fertile lands of the State, and which now yield the most luxuriant grasses, supplying abundant hay for the military post. The bottoms on the Smoky Hill and on the larger creeks are similarly situated, and under a constantly improving husbandry are showing increasing quantities of farm products.
Upland soils.-The upland soils may, in a certain sense, be all called sedentary; they have been formed on the spot and in many parts converted into a deep humus by the long-continued growth of vegetation. But the best and, as it fortunately happens, the most extensive soils of the upland are those of which the subsoil is the loess in its original or a modified form. It is a soil from the first. Plant life will flourish in it at once, so that where it has remained on the upland it gives a smooth surface on which, where undisturbed, the buffalo grass (Buchloë dactyloides) has kept longest hold, and where plowed it yields fine wheat. Orchards on these loess uplands thrive well. The rolling prairie has mostly the loess for its floor. There are, however, sedentary soils which are formed from the limestones and the shales of the district, where the loess has been eroded away. These soils, which are also locally called gumbo, are cold and somewhat intractable, and are mostly thin, occupying the flat tops of narrow ridges and promontories and the slopes to them. Grasses usually grow well on them, but they succumb soon to the influence of dry weather. In some places, however, these soils have become several feet thick and are fairly productive. Cultivation, especially subsoiling, may aid in removing the principal defect of these soils-thinness-by facilitating the influences of meteoric agencies on their lower parts. Fortunately, these less valuable soils occupy but a small part of the tillable area of the soils of Geary, Riley, and neighboring counties.
Brick clays.-The Quaternary deposits contain good materials for brickmaking. Bricks are in demand, and this demand has in past years somewhat encouraged a carelessness in western brickmaking that has perhaps not yet passed away, and the poor quality of bricks made has been wrongfully attributed to the clays used. The loess near Junction City is now yielding clay for a pressed brick which is of superfine quality, and the makers appear desirous to achieve the best possible results, which, so far, are satisfactory. As the true loess does not extend much farther west, the fine color of these bricks seems to insure a market for them all through western Kansas and Colorado. On the military reservation there is abundant loess, apparently of both Glacial epochs. Experiment would determine which is the better for brickmaking, but it is certain that both are good. The joint clay (gumbo) would also make good bricks.
Building stone.-The so-called magnesian limestones of this district-the Main ledge and the ledges above it-are all useful for building purposes. They can be sawed and otherwise easily cut by the mason, and they harden on their exposed surfaces. The layers above the Main ledge, giving range stone from 6 to 24 inches in thickness, are mostly used, the Main ledge itself being used only where blocks of large cubical dimensions are wanted. The new buildings at Fort Riley (see Pl. VIII) show the character of these stones, as do also numerous private dwellings in Junction City and the surrounding region. The mid-Shale bed (No. 7) is also of fine quality in many parts of the district. At Fort Riley it is 3 feet thick; is known as the "white ledge," and is used for caps and sills. On Clarks Creek, at the mouth of Dry Creek, it is still thicker, and of fine quality. East of the district it is also of value, and beds lower than the numbered section are extensively quarried. The building stone of this district must, as population increases, be largely exported to the western part of the State as well as to the East.
Plate VIII. Administration Building, Artillery Post, Fort Riley,
constructed of the magnesian limestone of the district.
Lime.-The beds used for building stone are not good for the lime burner. The ledges of the flint beds are, however, better. This is especially true of the Lower Flints (No. 5), which give a very good quality of lime. They crop out on Three Mile Creek, on the military reservation, in positions easily available for quarrying, and also at various points on Clarks Creek and on the uplands to the southeast. They are also well developed near the mouth of Lyons Creek, where, at Wreford, lime-burning is carried on, the product being sent all over the district, and beyond. If another name were required for these strata we might call the Lower Flint beds the Wreford limestone. These beds are, however, more extensively used for the same purpose in the Neosho Valley, and for a general designation some other geographic term would perhaps be more appropriate.
Cement.-Some of the ledges embedded in the shales have hydraulic properties, and some of the beds above the Main ledge have been worked for the purpose of making cement. This has been done at Milford, on the Republican River, but the experiment has not been continued, nor perhaps thoroughly tried, though some of the material sent to Wyandotte County was for a time used successfully when combined with the cement rock of that region.
Springs and wells.-There are numerous springs in this region, but none above the Main ledge. A few that come out just under the Main ledge do not last long in a dry season. The Upper Flint ledges yield copious springs of perennial flow. Some of them are simply inexhaustible, and have scarcely diminished their flow in the driest years. Nearly all of them testify to the prevalent westerly dip of the strata. They come out on the west or northwest side of bluffs and hills. There are some springs on the military reservation which, though mostly constant, are not copious, owing to the small areas of the promontories and ridges out of which they come. Among the copious springs of the region is Barefield Spring, northwest from Junction City, which the writer measured at a time of its probable average flow, and found it to yield 110,000 gallons per day. The Seven Springs, in the Smoky Hill valley, about 7 miles from Junction City, yield not less than 150,000 gallons per day. The flow at Spring Creek, 5 miles west of Skiddy, is perhaps the largest in the region, as, coming straight from the earth, it drives a 160-foot overshot water wheel. In the neighborhood of each of these springs there is a group having smaller flow, and there are others elsewhere in this region. Of course these springs have "hard" water, but it is mostly free from organic matter. The alluvium of the river bottoms is a water holder, and the wells thereon are easily made and well supplied. The water is softer than that from springs or wells in the Carboniferous rocks. The gravel of Tertiary materials in which the wells of the military post find their source is probably of considerable extent in the three river valleys, and will insure large supplies of water, good for all domestic purposes.
Near the eastern boundary of Geary County, in Wabaunsee, there are flowing wells-artesian-of highly mineralized water. It is the same at Wamego and elsewhere down the Kansas Valley. The geology of eastern Kansas gives no explanation of the artesian flow of these wells, but the occurrence of natural gas, and the known fact that in one or two instances the gas pressure raises the water to the surface, seem to suggest this as the reason of the artesian flow in the Kansas Valley. Wells on the upland usually obtain water in the horizon of the springs, viz, the Flint beds, and in the creek valleys beds of gravel under the alluvium yield large supplies.
Measurement of rivers.-The rivers themselves are, of course, an inexhaustible source of water supply to the municipal and military populations on their banks. The water of the three rivers has not been continuously measured anywhere, but single measurements in the district have given the following figures:
| Cubic feet Per second. | |
| Republican, June 15, 1891 | 2,045 |
| Smoky Hill, June 15, 1891 | 961 |
| Kansas at Fort Riley, June 18, 1891 | 6,961 |
It may be possible to supplement this report with a complete list of the Paleozoic fossils of the district, but in the absence of such list the names of the fossils occurring in the stratigraphic scheme of the Fort Riley section will be of use. It would take comparatively little work to complete the survey of the Permian strata to the west and north, to their contact with the Dakota, and to give the fossils in their highest beds. For this the Fort Riley section will be a valuable starting point.
It may be noted that trilobites (Phillipsia) have been found in the Main ledge, and this is probably the horizon of their highest occurrence. It has already been stated that the Productidæ disappear at the same horizon. Some of the Quarry ledges have abundance of Pecten and other lamellibranchs which seem to be persistent over great areas. Nautiloid shells are also found, especially in the higher beds. One was found in the mid-Shale bed (No. 7), but the others are all above No. 11. Four are new species, and as the horizon of one of them is apparently limited in vertical extent, it may perhaps give name to No. 12 of the section, which might be called the Stenopoceras beds, from Stenoprceras (Phacoceras) dumbli Hyatt, the type specimen of which was obtained in the Fort Riley quarries. Other specimens of this form have been since obtained at Junction City. The numerous Pecten and Pleurophorus casts might, however, suggest their names for the same beds.
The Quaternary deposits of this district seem almost entirely destitute of fossils. At Manhattan some years ago fragments of Elephas8 were found under 35 feet of loess. In the same neighborhood a loess nodule gave the teeth of a rodent. Farther down the Kansas Valley Professor St. John has found fragments of fish, but the beds of this region are singularly destitute of fossils. That there should be no land fauna is suggested by the fact that the greatest elevations are surmounted by a sheet of loess. That the waters should have few or no remains of the fauna of temperate regions is understood, because those waters were cold, and the cold had come on only be secular modifications of preexisting conditions. If further research should demonstrate that the loess is absolutely unfossiliferous-having no arctic or subarctic fauna-the reason is probably because the great continental ice-sheet lay between this region and the arctic waters, and the currents along the ice-front were southerly and easterly in direction.
Index.
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Note: The page numbers in the Index below do not match this document as it has been reproduced. |
| Page | |
| Alluvium | 27-28 |
| Baselevels | 28 |
| Biographic note on the author, deceased | 11 |
| Bowlders | 25 |
| Brick clays | 31 |
| Building materials | 31-32 |
| Carboniferous strata | 17, 20 |
| Cement | 32 |
| Clays for brickmaking | 31 |
| Climatic changes | 29 |
| Correlation of different regions | 30 |
| Creek valleys | 13 |
| Cretaceous geology of the district | 22-24 |
| Dakota deposits | 23 |
| Deposition, littoral and shallow-water conditions of | 21-22 |
| Dunes, sand | 28 |
| Economic geology | 30-33 |
| Erosion, pre-Quaternary | 22, 29 |
| Fenestella | 21 |
| Flint beds | 17, 19 |
| Fort Riley section | 17-18 |
| Fossils | 21 |
| Glacial deposits | 24-25, 29 |
| Grooves in limestone | 25-26 |
| Gumbo | 27-28 |
| Gypsum | 21, 22 |
| Hardpan | 28 |
| Hemipronites, finding of, in the strata | 21 |
| Hill, R. T., remarks by | 11 |
| Joint clay | 28 |
| Kansas-Neosho watershed | 14-15 |
| Lime | 32 |
| Littoral conditions of deposition | 21-22 |
| Loess bluffs on the Republican River | 14 |
| Loess of two periods | 26 |
| Main ledge | 17, 18-19 |
| Miocene grit in Smoky Hill Valley | 29 |
| Moraine | 24-25 |
| Neosho-Kansas watershed | 14-15 |
| Neosho Valley | 16 |
| Paleontology of the district | 33-34 |
| Paleozoic geology of the district | 16-23 |
| Pecten | 21, 34 |
| Permian strata | 17, 20 |
| Permo-Carboniferous strata | 17, 21 |
| Phillipsia, finding of | 33 |
| Pleurophorus | 21, 34 |
| Producti, finding of, in the strata | 21 |
| Prosser, C. S., reference to work of, in Kansas | 11 |
| Quarry beds | 19 |
| Quaternary geology of the district | 24-29 |
| Republican River, loess bluffs on the | 14 |
| Republican Valley | 12 |
| River system of the district | 12 |
| Rivers, measurement of | 33 |
| Sand dunes | 28 |
| Section at Fort Riley | 17-18 |
| Sink-holes | 15-16, 26-27 |
| Shales | 17, 20 |
| Shale (mid-) bed | 17, 20 |
| Smoky Hill Valley | 12 |
| Soils | 30-31 |
| Springs and wells | 32-33 |
| Stenopceras (Phacoceras) dumbli Hyatt | 34 |
| Stone for building purposes | 31-32 |
| Synocladia | 21 |
| Tertiary geology of the district | 24 |
| Topography of the district | 11-16 |
| Tribolites, finding of | 33 |
| Uplifts, continental | 32-33 |
| Water supply | 32 |
| Wells and springs | 32-33 |
1 The Geology of the Fort Riley Military Reservation and Vicinity, Kansas, Bulletin 137, 1896, pg. 11 footnote 1: This is a posthumous paper. It was written and submitted in the year 1889, but, owing to unavoidable circumstances, has remained unpublished. It was returned to Professor Hay for final revision in February, 1895, and this was probably the last work of his life, for he died December 14, 1895.
Since the preparation of the original manuscript Prof. Charles S. Prosser has made and published sections of the Carboniferous formation of the portion of Kansas discussed in this bulletin, giving paleontologic details of the Fort Riley section. (The Classification of the Upper Paleozoic Rocks of Central Kansas, by Charles S. Prosser: Jour. Geology, Vol. III, Chicago, 1895.) By comparison of Professor Hay's section with Professor Prosser's classification the correct position of the Fort Riley beds in the Kansas, Carboniferous, and Permian series can be ascertained. According to Prosser the uppermost bed, No. 14 of Professor Hay's Fort Riley section, is probably the base of the Marion formation, the remainder of the section representing the Chase stage of Prosser's Permian section.
By a strange fatality, the opportunities for perfected publication of the two chief works of his life were interrupted. Just as the proofs of his report as geologist in charge of the special artesian and underflow investigation, conducted under the auspices of the Agricultural Department, were ready to be placed in his hands in Washington, he was called to his Kansas home to attend the last illness of his wife, who had been a constant and valuable assistant in his researches, and that report went to press without his final revision. In a singular coincidence that his own death has prevented his seeing the proofs of the present paper-Robert T. Hill.
2 Ibid., page 11 footnote 2: The name Kansas will be hereafter used for this river in this report, in conformity with the ruling of the United States Board on Geographic Names.
3 Ibid., page 17 footnote 1: The Chase formation of Prosser.-R.T.H.
4 Ibid., page 17 footnote 2: Probably the Marion beds of Prosser.-R.T.H.
5 Ibid., page 17 footnote 3: Strong flint of Prosser.-R.T.H.
6 Ibid., page 22 footnote: This applies only to northern Kansas. Farther south it seems demonstrated that 1,000 feet or more of red-bed and saliferous shallow-water deposits came with stratigraphic continuity upon the Permo-Carboniferous rocks and connected Paleozoic with Mesozoic formations.
7 Ibid., page 26 footnote: The marks on Lyons Creek were brought to the writer's notice by Mr. E. McCarthy, county commissioner of Geary County, on whose land they are, and who for years has considered them as certainly of glacial origin.
8 Ibid., page 34 footnote: A tusk 10 feet 6 inches long, another 9 feet 10 inches, a tooth 15 by 8 ½ by 4 ½ inches, and fragments of other teeth.
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