6 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



Several biological and ethnological expeditions to various parts of 

 the world have been held in abeyance, although some already in the 

 field have continued in operation on a limited scale. It is expected 

 that after the war there will be greater activity in these lines than 

 ever before. 



Accounts of some of the more important researches are given here 

 and others are reported upon in the Appendix. 



GEOLOGICAL WORK IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 



Geological field work has been carried on by me in the Rocky 

 Mountains for several years past, particularly in the study of Cam- 

 brian and pre-Cambrian formations. The more important results 

 of this work have been described in my paper on " Evidences of 

 Primitive Life " in the Smithsonian Report for 1915 and in various 

 pamphlets of the Institution. Investigations during the summer and 

 early fall of 1917 were carried on at the now well-known " Burgess 

 Pass " fossil quarry, discovered by me in 1910. Fifty days were spent 

 at the Burgess Pass camp, 3,000 feet above Field, British Columbia, 

 where a section in the quarry of about 180 square feet was taken out. 

 This practically exhausts a quarry which has given the finest and 

 largest series of Middle Cambrian fossils yet discovered and the 

 finest invertebrate fossils yet found in any formation in any country. 

 More than one and a half tons of specimens were trimmed out at 

 the quarry, carried by pack horses to camp, and thence by rail to 

 Washington. 



A few days were taken to verify a geologic section near Lake Mc- 

 Arthur, and then the Vermilion River trip was begun. Following 

 down the Bow River, we crossed to the south side near Mount Castle 

 and camped at Vermilion Pass. Lower down the valley on the east- 

 ern side near the mouth of Ochre Creek, Syncline Peak shows rem- 

 nants of the compression and folding that accompanied the uplift 

 of the mountain massif, now cut by erosion into hundreds of moun- 

 tains, ridges, and canyons. 



From Vermilion River the party followed a new forest ranger 

 trail up Tumbling Brook to a small, beautiful glacier beneath the 

 great eastward facing cliffs of Gray Peak. 



Wolverine Pass is a broad, rolling area at about timber line. On 

 its southwestern slope the northeast branch of Moose Creek begins, 

 on the north slope the headwaters of Ochre Creek, and on the south- 

 east the drainage is to Tumbling Brook, a branch of Ochre Creek. 

 The views from the upper slopes northeast of the Pass are among 

 the finest in the Canadian Rockies. Mount Drysdale, on the right, 

 rises 2,200 feet above the Pass, and Mount Gray, on the left, 1,800 

 feet, the altitude of the Pass being 7.200 feet. Tumbling Glacier, 

 on the left of Mount Gray, is formed from snows blown over the 



