remains which were uncovered by the Los Angeles Museum under 

 a permit granted in 1 9 1 3 . The presentation was made to honor the 

 memory of his father and mother, Major Henry Hancock and 

 Madam Ida Hancock-Ross. 



Even today gas bubbles through the sticky mire of the tar 

 pools where so many thousands of wild animals were trapped as 

 they came to drink surface water collected on the pools. The gas 

 seeps upward from unknown depths to form iridescent globules on 

 the restless surface of the seething petroleum springs. The globules 

 break and settle back into slowly dissolving concentric ripples, 

 suggestive of the irresistible adhesiveness of the sticky ooze. 



Scientific interest in the tar pit fossils on Rancho La Brea was 

 first aroused in 1875 when Major Henry Hancock presented the 

 fang of a saber-toothed tiger to Professor William Denton of the 

 Boston Society of Natural History. Prof. Denton at once recog- 

 nized the tooth as an important paleontological find and tenta- 

 tively described it as that of a Machairodus, an old world feUne of 



Pleistocene times. The tooth was much larger than any previously 



known. Subsequent excavations produced complete skeletons 



and the monster cats were named Smilodon calif ornictis. 



Fossil remains continued to pile up as brea from the pits was 



mined, but scientists failed to pursue research until 1905 when 



bones of a gigantic ground sloth of a past geologic age were dis- 

 covered. "Within the next decade scientists from all parts of the 



world were attracted to the pits and several institutions were 



granted permits to examine the ancient deposits. Los Angeles 



County was granted the exclusive right to conduct the work. 



Skeletal elements of Pleistocene mammals totaling 4,264 repre- 

 sentative individuals were recovered from the deposits. More than 



ninety per cent were carnivores; approximately nine per cent were 



herbivores. More than half of the carnivores belonged to the dog 



family, including the large dire wolf, gray wolf, gray fox and 



coyotes. Among the other carnivores there predominated the 



saber-toothed tiger, the great lion, puma, lynx and smaller cats. 



Bison, horses, ground sloths, camels, antelopes, elephants, 



mastodons, deer, peccaries and tapirs were among the plant feeders 



trapped in the tarry pools. The pits yielded elements of 4,1 89 birds 



and thousands of rodents, insectivores and bats. i6 



