XIIL THE ELEPHANT 



When the Santa Fe Railroad extended its route from 

 Los Angeles to San Diego, the laborers working near the 

 town of San Juan Capistrano uncovered the skeleton of a 

 huge elephant. I reached the place some days later and 

 found that it was one of the great forms that roamed this 

 country thousands of years ago. The peculiar situation 

 of the skeleton told the story of the death of the animal. 

 The bones were discovered on the side of a cliff about 

 forty feet above the bed of a stream, lying in a light sand. 

 When the elephant lived, the bed of the stream was forty 

 feet higher, and the huge animal had, in wandering along, 

 stepped into a quicksand, been mired or trapped, and so 

 covered and held for thousands of years. 



The elephants of yesterday were much larger than those 

 of to-day. They were the mastodons and mammoths. 

 Indeed, the milk givers seemed to culminate in the Qua- 

 ternary age, the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, deer, and others 

 being of gigantic size. Several species of mastodons 

 (Fig. 103) at one time wandered all over this country, 

 their huge teeth (Fig. 104) being frequently found in 

 many states, and easily recognized by the marked depres- 

 sions, those of the mammoth being flat, bearing some 

 resemblance to the teeth of the African and Indian ele- 

 phants. In size the mastodon was probably equal to two 

 modern elephants, and the several species differed much, 

 especially in their tusks, which were marvels of beauty and 



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