Reports on the University Geological Survey of Kansas Volume 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... oxides 0.16 1.04 Calcium sulphate 76.98 65.97 Calcium carbonate 1.68 6.96 Magnesium carbonate 1.30 0.27 Water 19.63 18.56 100.09 99.29 In all the analyses made the amounts of silica alumina and lime carbonate in the earth deposits are higher than in the rock, which could be expected in a secondary deposit in a swamp. The amount of sulphate of lime is lower, so that the earth deposits are not as pure as the rock strata. The impurity of the earth makes it set more slowly, and so makes the material more favorably adapted to wall-plaster manufacture. The microscopical crystals of gypsum in this earth are angular and many of them perfect. No masses of gypsum rock are ever found in the earth, and no fragments of other stone or sand in any amount. The material is quite uniform in size and chemical composition through the whole deposit. If the material was washed from gypsum rock of higher levels, as some have maintained, some fragments of gypsum and other rock would certainly be found in some of these deposits. SPRING THEORY OF ORIGIN. The gypsum earth, then, must have been deposited in these places from solution. If from solution in surface streams, considerable sand and silt would be carried in and the chemical composition would vary in different parts of the mass. Further, as in nearly all the areas, no gypsum is over the earth, so that the streams would have to bring the material from long dis NATURAL BRIDGE IN MEDICINE LODGE GYPSUM, BARBER COUNTY (SOUTH SIDE). Photoirrnphed by Grimeley, 1897. tances. Some sand, clay, lime carbonate, and organic material are shown by chemical analyses and by the microscope, and these may be due to surface agencies. The water circulating through or near the underlying gypsum rock dissolved a portion of the rock and...