III. GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. "THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS EXPEDITION INTO THE JOHN DAY REGION OF OREGON." By C. E. MCCLUNG, University of Kansas, Lawrence. "THE LOUP FORK MIOCENE OF WESTERN KANSAS." By CHARLES H. STERNBERG, Lawrence. "ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE GEOLOGY OF KANSAS.” By LYMAN C. WOOSTER, Emporia. (65) THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS EXPEDITION INTO THE THE JOHN DAY REGION OF OREGON. By C. E. MCCLUNG, University of Kansas, Lawrence. HE University of Kansas takes pride in its natural-history museum, the largest of any state institution in the country, and almost annually sends one or more expeditions into the field to add to the collections. These explorations have covered a good part of western North America, but until last summer no Kansas party had visited the extreme northwestern portion of the United States. With a desire to make the material in the museum as representative as possible, the zoology department conducted an exploration through the John Day region of central Oregon in search of mammalian fossils. It has been the custom to record in the Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science the general nature of the explorations conducted by the museum, and for this reason I thought it desirable to make some mention of the one sent to Oregon. The party, consisting of Messrs. Martin, Baumgartner, Hoskins, and myself, all of the zoology department, outfitted at La Grande and started west over the Blue mountains on July 1. The collecting ground had not been approached from this direction, and it was hoped that some advantage might accrue from this fact, but experience showed that the limited size of the field placed no premium upon any particular entrance into it. This will be apparent from the description of the region which I will give. The John Day river has its head waters in the eastern range of the Blue mountains, and in its earlier course traverses a roughly triangular basin bounded by different spurs of these mountains. Within this basin there are three divisions of the river-the north fork, the east fork, and the south fork-which unite together before the stream finally turns north to flow into the Columbia river. It is upon the main river, which, just before joining the north fork, runs north and south, that the principal collecting grounds are found. Through the elevated basin the various branches of the river meander, cutting great canyons down through the Columbian lavas that overspread the whole of this part of Oregon. The entire region is indescribably rough, and when one views the relatively low-lying basin from an elevation it appears as if a veritable carni val of chaos had disported itself over the land. Such an assemblage of crags, ridges and mounds it would be hard to imagine. A few level spots are found along the streams, but the valleys are very narrow, and it is with extreme difficulty that roads are made. And even when they are once established there are many chances that they will not endure, for heavy waterspouts rush down the narrow canyons piling up great boulders and excavating deep gorges across and along the passageways. There is as great a fear of these deluges in the mountains of Oregon as there is of cyclones upon the plains of Kansas. It is but a few years since the small town of Heppner lost over 500 lives in one of these visitations. Vegetation is very scanty, and the whole region is bare and uninviting. Into this arena we penetrated with difficulty, after a long journey over the mountains, and settled down to work on the main river in a locality called Turtle Cove. This is a fairly representative portion of the region, and I will describe it in some detail. Just here the river runs almost due north and south for a distance of about twenty miles, through a valley that will average about five miles in width. The hills rise precipitously on each side to a height of about 1500 feet, and from their bases long, slanting terranes extend in toward the river, which winds in and out at the bases of their interdigitating extremities. As many as twenty-two lava-beds may be seen in the hills, and for most of the distance in Turtle Cove they lie approximately horizontal. The terranes are largely composed of lava fragments, but now and then exposures of the John Day formation may be seen lifting themselves into prominence against the darker colored background. Merriam makes three divisions of the John Day deposits, the lower, middle, and upper, and all of these may be found in Turtle Cove. The lower offers no attractions to the paleontologist, for animal remains have not been found in it, but the peculiar rounded hills into which it forms on exposure make a most striking landscape. Almost all colors of the rainbow may be seen, but the prevailing ones are chocolate red and pea-green. Frequently the dark red mounds are banded with undulating stripes of white, which produces a most bizarre effect. The shades of color vary with the direction of the light, but always have a soft effect. On close inspection the mounds are found to be covered with about six inches of loose soil, cracked into small bits, and it is to this condition that the varying shades of color and the soft effect are due. Underneath their superficial layer the unweathered shale constitut |