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Posted on Mon, Mar. 02, 2009

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Kansas' geology studied in 1860s

The Wichita Eagle

This is one in a series of vignettes celebrating Kansas history. The series' name comes from the state motto, Ad astra per aspera: "To the stars through difficulties."

BY BECCY TANNER

He was the state's first geologist and reluctantly accepted his assignment.

In 1864, it was up to Benjamin Franklin Mudge to conduct the first geological survey of Kansas.

Across the 83,000 square miles of Kansas, nearly all of it frontier, Mudge's job was to report the geology of Kansas -- finding where its minerals and rock formations lay, where soil could be found to nurture crops and livestock.

But cultural conflicts in Kansas in 1864 were extremely harsh.

American Indian tribes were attacking new settlements springing up on their lands in Kansas. The federal government used military troops to keep peace and established both Fort Harker and Fort Zarah near the crossroads of the Santa Fe Trail.

Mudge forged ahead.

He found salt in central Kansas, coal in the southeastern corner, and fossils in western Kansas.

He made discoveries that prompted world-renowned rival paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope to lead later expeditions into western Kansas.

Since Mudge's discoveries in the late 1860s, the Smoky Hill chalk beds of western Kansas have been known throughout the world for containing fossils dating to the Cretaceous period, nearly 87 million years ago.

His discoveries even led him across the Kansas border into Colorado, where he found fossilized remains of some of the first Jurassic-period dinosaurs -- predating Cretaceous fossils -- in the American West.

All told, he would discover more than 80 species of fossilized remains and his collections would end up in major museums throughout the world.

Mudge first came to Kansas during the summer of 1861. Born in 1817, he grew up in Massachusetts. His interest was always natural science and history, but he became a lawyer.

Mudge was sympathetic to the abolitionist movement and moved to Kansas to demonstrate his antislavery convictions.

When the Kansas State Agricultural College -- now Kansas State University -- was founded in Manhattan in 1863, Mudge served as its professor of geology.

In 1864, Mudge spoke to the Kansas Legislature in favor of "Scientific and Economical Geology." It was at a time when a bill was being introduced establishing funding for the first state geological survey.

Mudge died in 1879. At least three species of fossils were named in his honor: a mosasaur, "Liodon mudgei;" an oak, the "Quercus mudgei," and an ancient seabird called "Colonosaurus mudgei."

Reach Beccy Tanner at 316-268-6336 or btanner@wichitaeagle.com.