The Condition of Wild Life in Alaska 



easy matter to protect these animals, especially with 

 the co-operation of the Canadian authorities, 

 throughout the inland passages and oceanward as 

 far as the three mile limit. Protective legislation 

 of this sort should be urged. 



Fossils. In any review of the present game 

 conditions of the vast territory comprised within 

 the districts of Alaska and the Canadian Territory 

 of the Yukon, a few remarks on the former occur- 

 rence of related forms are not without interest. 



Bones of large extinct mammals, more or less 

 fossilized, occur in abundance throughout the en- 

 tire valley drained by the Yukon River from Daw- 

 son down, and the valleys of the Colville and 

 Porcupine Rivers, and in still greater abundance 

 on the Seward Peninsula, that projection of Alaska 

 which reaches to within sixty miles of Siberia. 

 Throughout this enormous area remains of the 

 mammoth and bison occur in such numbers as to 

 indicate former herds of great size. We find also 

 a smaller number of remains of horses, sheep, two 

 species of musk-ox and a camel, together with a 

 deer closely related to our wapiti. Teeth of 

 mastodon, although very rare as compared with 

 those of the mammoth, indicate the former exist- 

 ence of that animal. It is perfectly evident that 

 in times comparatively recent, from a geological 



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