Popular Science Monthly 



517 



A Curious Finger Print. How 

 Did the Letters Get There? 



Transplanting Wild Animals to 

 Stock the National Parks 



THE photograph on the right 

 shows a finger print taken of a 

 recruit to the National Guards, 

 mustered into the Federal service. 

 Part of the examination of each 

 recruit consists in the making of an 

 impression of the ball of the fore 

 finger on a special blank prepared ;:fi"...T.1^.f ""'"■'""" ''' plentiful to others where, so far 



f^f 4^Vio T-.ii.-_ Wljrff iii m Qc tnriTi-n 



THE United States is carrying on 

 a very interesting work in 

 exchanging the wild animals of one 

 region for those of others — trans- 

 planting elk and deer and Rocky 

 Mountain bighorns from regions in 



Print o' r^it lata fin««T to u thc L uitcd Statcs whcrc they are 



T 



«fc^ 



Bic&atore o^ aoldlw : 



l^tu.jJ.J:fj^SLc.4aJl 



for the pur- 

 pose. The re- 

 cruit signs the 

 blank and 

 affixes his seal 

 in the form of 

 a finger print. 

 When the 

 attention of 

 James De- 

 chene, the re- 

 c r u i t in 

 question, was 

 called to the 

 impression 

 which he had made, he was as much sur- 

 prised as the examiners at the raised letters 

 shown. His occupation had been that of 

 a tool dresser for oil well operators, before 

 he enlisted. The tools which he handled 

 were large, and the end which he would 

 naturally hold was always cool or cold, so 

 that there seemed no explanation as to how 

 he received the lettering on his finger nor 

 as to what the word was of which they 

 formed a part. He could not remember 

 having received any burn or handling any 

 heated stamped metal. 



The letters U O P L E stood out in bold relief on the recruit's 

 finger print, though what they meant he did not know 



known, 

 they have not 

 lived. Some of 

 the animals 

 are being 

 shipped long 

 distances. 



Wvoming is 

 full Jf elk; the 

 herds in the 

 Jackson Hole 

 country are 

 the largest of 

 any of North 

 American wild 

 animals since the days of the countless 

 buffalos. But the big Yosemite National 

 Park of California, with its three quarters 

 of a million acres, until recently had no elk, 

 or at least only a very few scattered 

 specimens. But the elk shipped in from 

 Wyoming have become very much at home 

 and are breeding and multiplying rapidly, 

 adding to the charm and picturesqueness of 

 this popular national playground. The 

 photograph shows a carload of yearling elk 

 shipped by the Government from Jackson 

 Hole down into Colorado. 



A carload of yearling elk shipp)ed b> luc Ciuvt:iiiiii(.iii iiom jacKson Hole, Wvoming, mto Colorado. 

 They are lying over for a few days at the Denver stockyards for' the sake of exercise 



