74 THE PHYSIOGEAPHY OF PKI^STCE GEORGE S COU2s"TY 



It occupies the highest portions of the divide between Chesapeake 

 Baj and Patuxent Elver and also is well developed along the western 

 side of Patuxent Valley as far north as the mouth of Western Branch. 

 In the valleys of llattawoman, Piscataway and Henson creeks and 

 Anacostia River the Sunderland plain, though present, is represented 

 only by remnants. The surface of this plain reaches an altitude of 

 about 180 feet at Charlotte Hall, a short distance beyond the southern 

 boundary of Prince George's County, and of 200 feet near Anacostia. 

 It has suffered more stream erosion than the Talbot and Wicomico 

 plains, which lie at lower levels. 



Wicomico Plain. — The Wicomico plain lies at a higher level than 

 the Talbot, from which it is in many places separated by an escarp- 

 ment varying in height from a few feet to 10 or 12 feet. At some 

 places this escarpment is absent, so that there seems to be a gradual 

 passage from the Talbot plain to the Wicomico. It is present, how- 

 ever, at so many different places that there is little difficulty in deter- 

 mining the line of separation between the two plains. The base of 

 the escarpment lies at an elevation of about 40 feet. From that 

 height the Wicomico plain extends upward to an elevation of about 

 100 feet, where it is in turn separated from the next higher plain by 

 an escarpment. 



The Wicomico plain is older than the Talbot and has suffered more 

 erosion. The streams which cross it have cut deeper valleys than 

 those in the Talbot plain and have widened their basins to such an 

 extent as to destroy, in great measure, the original continuity of its 

 level surface. Enough of this surface remains, however, to indicate 

 the presence of the plain and to permit its identification. 



The escarpment which separates this plain from the Sunderland 

 plain below is well defined in the region about Anacostia, where it 

 attains a height of about 50 feet. ISTear Aquasco, and just beyond 

 the southern border of the county in the vicinity of Charlotte Hall, 

 the escarpment is present, but here it does not exceed 20 feet in 

 height. Throughout the rest of the County it seems never to have 

 existed or to have been destroyed or so greatly modified by erosion 

 that its determination is rendered uncertain. The surface of this 

 plain ranges in elevation from about 200 feet in the southeastern 



