586 HISTORY OF PASADE^NA. 



fornia fauna — not the elephant of India or Africa, but a prodigious creature, 

 vast in every sense, taller by several feet than existing forms, weighing a 

 third more, and armed with gleaming ivory tusks from fourteen to sixteen 

 feet in length. It browsed upon the herbage of the mountain sides, wan- 

 dered into the well-wooded glens that led into the range, and roamed over 

 the vast mesas and by the shores of the lakes, which then were a feature of 

 California of the South. Picture an elephant a third taller than existing 

 species, its trunk like the limb of a huge tree, its limbs enormous columns 

 for support rather than for locomotion, its rough head covered sparsely 

 with hairs, and protruding from the capacious mouth two massive columns 

 of ivory, each weighing from three hundred to four hundred pounds, and 

 some conception of this wonderful elephant may be obtained. In the dif- 

 ferent geological ages several elephants have inhabited this country — the 

 mammoth, mastodon, and American elephant. Remains of the two latter 

 have been found in Southern California, especially those of the mastodon. 

 The mammoth was a hairy northern form, while the others ranged farther 

 to the south. The geographical range of this animal has, from specimens 

 found, been fairly well determined. It roamed over what are now the 

 States of Texas, Georgia, Mexico, Oregon, Ohio and California, but proba- 

 bly did not venture north of the Canada line, being adapted for the warmer 

 climate which existed in the south. 



The Tertiary period of geological history is divided into three sections 

 — Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene, the latter being the time just before the 

 Age of Man, though some writers believe that human beings existed even 

 earlier than this. [See Geological chart, page 541.] The American elephant 

 came upon the scene, as far as we know, in the Pliocene time, and, unaffected 

 by the changes that resulted in the Quaternary, continued into it. 



In the Pliocene time California was inhabited by many animals equally 

 as strange as the elephant. With it, in droves, were camels, and a huge 

 rhinoceros, as large if not larger than any found in Africa today. The 

 tiger now found in India was represented by a huge form. Early man, did 

 he exist, [see page 528.] could have hunted this tiger not only on the great 

 elephant already described, but could have rode along the base of the Sierras 

 on the back of a huge mastodon {Mastodon Mirijjcus). The ancestors of the 

 ' present horse galloped over the plains, the curious Protohippus with three 

 toes, fine specimens of which in its successive transitions down to the 

 present horse, can be seen in the Museum at Yale University. The Phocene 

 period merged into the Quaternary, which was characterized by violent 

 earthquakes and tippings, especially in high latitudes, and thereby marked 

 changes of climate occurred, affecting animal Hfe. In the Pliocene times, 

 Pasadena and all the coast well down the Peninsula of California was under 

 water, and the waves of the Pacific beat well up to what is now Altadena. 

 The Puente hills and ranges about Santa Ana were beneath the wave, and 

 huge sharks and whales fed over what are now Santa Ana, Orange, Tustin, 

 San Juan, Ramona, etc. The vertebrae of whales are plowed up on moun- 

 tain slopes all along this region ; and in South Pasadena a deposit contains 

 myriads of fossil fishes. (?) [See " Fossil Fish Eedge," page 551.] 



The Quaternary saw an elevation of the crust along the coast, and the 

 Pliocene shell beds became dry land, some of the deposits being lifted high 

 upon the tops of mountains. The lower animals, and many higher ones re- 

 sembled those of today. This period saw the culmination of mammalian 

 Hfe and the beginning of its downfall. The American elephant, the masto- 

 don, and the mammoth, lived then. 



