284                           KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE.

ON THE FINDING OF FOSSIL INSECTS IN THE COMANCHE CRETACEOUS OF KANSAS.

BY C. N. GOULD.

      During the summer of 1897, while in the employ of the state university, the writer was visited at Belvidere, Kan., by Dr. S. W. Williston. We drove some

five miles southeast to the Black hills (Stokes hill of Cragin), and visited the

locality where Prof. Robert T. Hill and the writer first found dicotyledonous

leaves in the summer of 1894. Doctor Williston remarked that the presence of

fossil vegetation would indicate that insects might be found in the vicinity. An

hour or so was spent in looking over the various shale beds but nothing of importance was discovered.

     A few days after, while collecting shells in the vicinity, some shale was found

which apparently contained traces of insects' wings. They were sent to Doctor

Williston, who forwarded them to Professor Scudder, of Harvard University, the

best authority on fossil insects in America. Professor Scudder identified the

material as insects, but stated that on account of the poor state of preservation

he could not be sure of genus or species. These are, so far as known, the first

fossil insects discovered in the state.

     The locality is about one-fourth of a mile south of the natural corral, on the

ranch of Mr. Frank Abell. The horizon is Hill's No.6, or Prosser's No.11.

(See the University Geological Survey of Kansas, Vol. 2, p. 121.) The material

is described as "very black, sleek, argillaceous shale,  ‘paper shales’ of Hill,

sparingly fossiliferous in the lower part." It is immediately above Cragin’s

Champion shell bed, which is well developed in the locality. Persistent work in

the shales will doubtless reveal an interesting fauna.