KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND.

shall have (in the width of the State) the territory of the coal lands,
308 miles in length by 107 in average breadth, which gives an area
of 22,256 square miles. .....

“The Coal Measures here have undergone little change, and lie
nearly in their natural position. They dip on the average, as before
' stated, slightly to the northwest. In some parts of the State this in-
clination cannot be seen, and in some instances there is an anticlinal
ridge or dip in the opposite direction. .....

“Tt will be seen that this small disturbance of the strata is very
favorable to the opening of coal shafts. No ‘faults’ will be found in
the beds, and the probability of reaching the coal at reliable depths at
any given point will be nearly certain. It also gives us a larger area
of the coal field, as a higher inclination would soon carry the heads
too deep for mining.

“This portion of the State also shows a great uniformity of the
strata. About one-fourth of the whole deposit is limestone. South
of the Kansas river the strata show an increase of thickness, particu-
larly in the shales, accompanied with a slight increase of dip. This
increase of thickness is very marked in Miami county, as developed
by the oil and salt borings.

“Tt is well understood that the extreme upper portion of the coal
measures does not contain coal of the first quality, or seams of much
thickness. Those peculiarly favorable conditions of climate, &c.,
which were so important for the accumulation of vast amounts of
vegetable matter, had begun to change, so that the coal was small in
quantity and poor in quality. A fine illustration of this passing away
of the peculiarities of the vegetation of the coal period is to be seen in
the banks of the Neosho, about three miles from Council Grove. It
consists of a stratum of shale, two feet in thickness, full of the remains
of the vegetation of the period, but accompanied by a singular com-
mingling of the materials with the mineral substances, and the vege-
tation shows less of the transformation from its original state than
that of the true coal beds.”

Professor Mudge then gives in detail a report of the borings for
coal at Leavenworth, which proved successful. The parties are now
engaged in sinking a shaft preparatory to practical and extensive
mining. From itI gather that 142 feet of the strata passed through
were above the level of the Missouri river, and 230 feet below, when
a vein of bituminous shale and coal 94 feet thick was reached. At
116 feet below the level of the river, a vein of slate and coal was per-
forated; but as the second vein is known to be greatly superior, little
attention was paid to it. This second vein is known to be the same
that is largely worked on the line of the Hannibal and St. Joseph
Railroad, some fifty or sixty miles east of Saint Joseph, in Northern
Missouri, and which I examined with some attention when I was
there last fall. The vein there is about six feet thick, and is, I think,
between one and two hundred feet below the surface. The coal