ATCHISON COUNTY.

LOCATION AND NATURAL FEATURES.

Atchison County is one of the extreme northeastern counties of Kansas, bordering on the Missouri River, being bounded north by Brown and Doniphan counties, west by Jackson and south by Leavenworth. It has area of 409 square miles or 271,360 acres.

The Delaware River furnishes excellent water power for mills at Muscotah and Arrington. Independence Creek in Shannon and Lancaster townships and Stranger Creek in Mount Pleasant township also possess natural powers, which have been improved to some extent.

Cottonwood, burr oak, walnut, hackberry, elm, maple, sycamore, ash, basswood and hickory skirt these streams, the timber being particularly abundant in Shannon and Walnut townships. Timber is also being successfully and quite extensively cultivated, cottonwood, maple and walnut being specially prolific. The general surface of the county is undulating, with bluffs along the Missouri River. Land is divided as follows: Bottom, 15 per cent; upland, 85; forest, 10; prairie, 90. The bottom lands are from one fourth to two miles in width.

The county is principally watered by the Stranger and Delaware rivers. The Stranger River takes its rise in the central portions of the county, flowing southeast and south toward the Kansas River. From Brown County comes the Delaware River, flowing in a generally southern direction, through the western sections. Independence Creek rises in the northern portion and cuts the northeastern corner of the county and empties into the Missouri. White Clay Creek, which passes through the City of Atchison, assist to water the eastern part. Little Delaware and Coal creeks, branches of the Delaware, also drain the western sections of the county. Good water is obtained at a depth of from twenty to thirty feet.

In the southwestern part of the county are the Arlington Mineral Springs, which are obtaining a reputation for medicinal qualities. The grounds have been improved and visitors flock to the springs from localities even outside of the county. The water is highly magnetic, and is rich in carbonic acid.

Valuable varieties of building stone are found in different parts of the county and in some localities, quite abundantly; Shannon township, in and around Atchison, is especially favored with good gray limestone. In Grasshopper township, near the bluffs bordering on the Delaware River, limestone abounds. Coal in small quantities has been mined near Muscotah, in this township. Good limestone is found in the southeastern corner of Center, the southern and eastern sections of Mount Pleasant and in Walnut townships. A yellow and blue variety is quarried in Mount Pleasant township, and is obtained in excellent shape for building purposes. On the Delaware River and vicinity, in Kapioma township, lime, sand and flagging stone are found, the latter being easily quarried. In a word, sandstone, white, blue and gray limestone abound throughout the county, especially the latter. Fire clay and mineral paint are believed to exist in quantity, in Lancaster township - also an inexhaustible quantity of pottery clay, in the southwest quarter of section twenty-three, range nineteen. From Grasshopper township has been obtained an excellent quality of hydraulic cement, made by grinding a blue shale which is found under the subsoil.