WILD LIFE IN ALASKA—GRANT. 529 
tinent, but the latter is little more than a hairy relative of the Indian 
elephant, thoroughly fitted to meet boreal conditions, and the horses 
in Alaska were probably not unlike the wild Prjevalsky horses of 
Asia to-day. 
The ancient Alaskan deer were probably related to the wapiti, 
which swarmed over our American plains within the memory of 
living man, and the fossil remains of caribou and moose do not 
indicate any great departure from the living forms of those animals. 
Sheep still occur abundantly in Alaska, and the musk ox, while 
no longer found in Alaska, inhabits the no less inhospitable regions 
of the Barren Grounds of North America and the land masses lying 
still farther north. 
Bison skulls are quite common, and indicate an animal much 
larger, but probably ancestral to our living buffalo. The history 
of the American bison, which migrated in summer as far north 
as the Saskatchewan and southward in winter to the Mexican border, 
suggests that it is quite possible that these animals did not habitually 
spend the winter in Alaska, but on the approach of the cold season 
migrated southward to warmer climates, or crossed into Siberia on 
the former land connection over what are now Bering Straits. If 
this hypothesis be correct, the climate of Alaska during the Pleisto- 
cene and recent periods may not have radically differed from the 
climate of to-day. 
The extension of placer mining in Alaska, when conducted in 
a more systematic manner than at present, will undoubtedly bring 
to light other forms of large mammals, most probably types related 
to those already mentioned, together with the remains of carnivorous 
types. 
