12 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
of about 750 feet. This plain was formed only on the softer Paleozoic 
rocks, and, because of its prominence near Harrisburg, Pa., is known 
as the Harrisburg peneplain. Conococheague Creek traverses the 
Harrisburg peneplain in Maryland, and has dissected it considerably, 
but the even sky line of the ancient plain is still clearly evident. 
Other factors in the geologic history of Maryland are recorded 
in the well-defined gravel terraces along the major streams of the 
area and in great alluvial fans of large and small bowlders, spread- 
ing out at the foot of the larger mountains and sometimes reaching a 
depth of 150 feet. 
PLEISTOCENE CAVE DEPOSIT IN MARYLAND. 
As the results of a further examination of the Pleistocene cave de- 
posit near Cumberland, Md., by Mr. J. W. Gidley, of the National 
Museum, many new forms were added to the collection, and much 
better material obtained of several species represented only by frag- 
ments of jaws in the first collection. The series now includes more 
than 300 specimens, representing at least 40 distinct species of mam- 
mals, many of which are extinet. Among the better preserved speci- 
mens are several nearly complete skulls and lower jaws. The more 
important animals represented are two species of bears, two species 
of a large extinct peccary, a wolverine, a badger, a martin, two porcu- 
pines, a woodchuck, and the American elandlike antelope. 
Other species represented by more fragmentary material include 
the mastodon, tapir, horse, and beaver, besides several species of the 
smaller rodents, shrews, bats, and others. 
This strange assemblage of fossil remains occurs hopelessly inter- 
mingled and comparatively thickly scattered through a more or less 
unevenly hardened mass of cave clays and breccias, which completely 
filled one or more small chambers of a limestone cave, the material, 
together with the bones, evidently having come to their final resting 
place through an ancient opening at the surface a hundred feet or 
more above their present location. The deposit is exposed at the 
bottom of a deep railroad cut which first brought to hght this ancient 
bone deposit and incidentally made access to the fossils comparatively 
easy. 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF PANAMA. 
A statement was made in my report for last year that an allot- 
ment had been made from the Institution’s funds toward the ex- 
penses of an investigation of the geology of Panama. This work is in 
progress under the joint auspices of the Isthmian Canal Commis- 
sion, the United States Geological Survey, and the Smithsonian 
Institution. The general plan includes a systematic study of the 
physiography, stratigraphy and structural geology, geologic history, 
geologic correlation, mineral resources (including coal, oil, and other 
