PRELIMINARY REPORT ON A RECENTLY DISCOVERED PLEISTOCENE CAVE DEPOSIT NEAR CUMBERLAND, MARYLAND. Bt James Williams Gidlet, Assistant Curator of Fossil Mammals, United States Natiomil Museum. INTRODUCTION. The recent fortunate discovery of Pleistocene mammal remains in cave deposits near Cumberland, Maryland, adds one more to the rather limited number of such occurrences and promises to be of great importance in working out the comparatively little known Pleistocene mammahan life of the eastern United States. It may also aid in the proper correlation of these and similar deposits of the East with the better known Pleistocene beds of other parts of the country. The preliminary investigation of the Cumberland Cave deposit made last October produced most encouraging results. Over 100 specimens were secured, consisting principally of jaws and jaw frag-ments, which represent 22 recognizable genera, including one genus now exclusively African, and at least 29 species, most of which are apparently extinct, or are now living in remote localities. The work of exploration again taken up by the writer in May of the present year has already added several other forms to the list, and is yielding better material of many of the forms represented in the collection of last autumn. This material will be pubHshed with the final results and conclusions at a later date when the exploration is completed. The location of this important find is at the bottom of a deep cut of the Western Maryland Railway where it passes through the north end of a spur or ridge of hmestone near the little village of Corrigans-ville, at the mouth of Cash Valley, about 4 miles northwest of Cum-berland. The ledge is here upturned at an angle of about 90°, the roadway cutting it nearly at right angles, and the excavation is about 100 feet deep at the point where the fossil-bearing deposits were exposed. When first observed the workmen naturally regarded the bones as those of animals now living in the neighborhood, and beyond exciting their curiosity at finding them buried in the rocks and debris of a small cavern at so great a depth, no particular interest Proceedinqs U. S. National Museum, Vol. 46— No. 2014-
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