January, 1938 



EVOLUTION 



Page Three 



Prehistoric Life In California 



By CHARLES L. CAMP 

 Director of the Museum of Paleontology, University of California 



IMAGINE, if you will, a telescope so constructed as to 

 allow a peep back millions of years into the past. 

 What would you not give to look through such an instru- 

 ment — to study the progress of human history through the 

 ages as though you were looking at a three dimensional 

 moving picture — or to witness the procession of animal life 

 during the immense period before the development of man ? 



Such an experience may never be realized but one can 

 nevertheless examine the past by studying the fossils which 

 are found in the earth's crust. Fossils are the remains, 

 sometimes petrified, of the life of ages long gone by — 

 before man appeared as a civilized being. 



The most common fossils are shells and bones of animals, 

 and leaves and stems of plants. We also find tracks, bor- 

 ings, casts and other products of plant and animal life 

 such as natural gas, coal and oil — fossil substances of the 

 utmost importance as reservoirs of power, handed down as 

 a heritage from the distant past, and of fundamental neces- 

 sity in our present stage of mechanized civilization. 



A glance at the fossil record shows that life has existed 

 on this earth for hundreds of millions of years — a pro- 

 digious time in which the whole course of written history 

 is the mere flicker of an eyelash. The record also shows 

 that nearly all forms of life have been changing or evolving 

 in habits, body-form, activity, mentality and emotional 

 make-up. Little weak forms become great strong animals 

 in the course of evolution and the great strong creatures 

 exist royally for a while and suddenly disappear leaving 

 other little ones to grow up and take their places. The 

 elephant is descended from a little rabbit-like creature — 

 the giant dinosaurs evolved from small reptiles about the 

 size of a rooster. 



It appears evident that man himself has not existed long 

 on this earth. His remains are found only in about the 

 last one thousandth part of the fossil record. He has evi- 

 dently been here for not much longer than a million years 

 and only in the last one-hundredth part of that time — only 



in the last 10,000 years at most — has he discovered the 

 methods of organizing himself into what we call civilized 

 society. His conquests over the animals of his neighbor- 

 hood were made by superior intelligence. He learned how 

 to kill some and tame others. He changed wolves that 

 killed his sheep into dogs that guarded them, unruly buf- 

 falo-like cattle into placid milk-cows. He learned how 

 to ride and harness the fiery wild-horse, the temperamental 

 reindeer and the nimble South American camel or llama. 

 He made over the fierce, active wild boar into a fat, lazy 

 tank of lard and bacon. He captured wild sheep in the 

 mountains of Asia and caused them to produce more wool, 

 mutton and less brains. He subdued the elephant and 

 turned him into a live tractor, but he has never really 

 changed the elephant because he has not induced him to 

 breed in captivity. Man has therefore changed his ani- 

 mals by selecting those which he desired, breeding from 

 them and killing or neglecting the others. Nature has 

 doubtless worked in much the same way in the course of 

 ages — eliminating the unfit and preserving the advancing 

 types. We cannot be sure of the method but we can be 

 sure of the fact that most of the animals of the past, in- 

 cluding man, have been changing or evolving from one 

 stage to another in the long course of time. Here is a 

 little of the evidence at our very doors. 



Fossils of ancient life are abundant in North America 

 and particularly so in California. In fact we know more 

 about the world of life in California just before the com- 

 ing of man than anywhere else. This record has been 

 preserved in the asphalt pits of Rancho La Brea in Los 

 Angeles, in the caves of Shasta, and in many other natural 

 burial places. 



One hundred thousand years ago California was a wild 

 and savage land. The forests found today in the region 

 of Monterey extended southward along the coast. The 

 southland received more rainfall than at present and the 

 grass grew higher. In this grass-land one might have 



^ i *•«- 





Painted hj/ Ciiailcs R. Knight 



Copinight-cd /iy the Aytierican Mhscudi of i<utnral Ilii^tory 



RANCHO LA BREA -^ CALIFORNIA LONG AGO 



