358 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



shoulder is 13 ft. 6 in. and the length from tip of tusk to 

 pelvic bone is 25 ft. Out of 98 pits opened the bulk of the 

 elephant remains came from a single pit, No. 9, which has 

 been designated the Elephant Pit, and this furnished sev- 

 eral single tusks of considerably greater length than those 

 mounted in the skull of the Imperial elephant specimen. 

 One of these fossil tusks is 15 ft. long, while another has 

 the altogether exceptional length of 16 ft., almost, if not 

 quite, equalling the remarkable example in the Instituto 

 Geologico of Mexico City. The enormous mass of fossil 

 remains of extinct animals gathered from these asphalt 

 pits may be better understood when we state that there are 

 in the Los Angeles County Museum 3,500 boxes of these 

 remains of which the Sabre-tooth furnished 630; the Giant 

 Wolf, 700; fossil elephants, 17; mastodons, 7; Giant Sloth, 

 40; camels, 7; and lions, 10. These relics were gathered to- 

 gether under the care and direction of Director Frank S. 

 Daggett of the Museum. 



The asphalt pits at Rancho La Brea, containing ele- 

 phant and mastodon remains, are believed to have been 

 formed in geological times after the occurrence of a fault 

 in the shale strata. Along the course of this fault it is 

 supposed that imprisoned gases violently forced their way 

 to the surface, producing a series of blowholes or pits. 

 Gradually these became filled up with water and tar seep- 

 age, some of the animal remains being drawn into them 

 with the liquid substances, while others again may rep- 

 resent animals that were actually trapped into the tar-pits 

 by sinking therein, after the tar had formed an adhesive mass 

 reaching up to the surface of the pit. The progress of inves- 

 tigation of these deposits has led to the conclusion that all 

 the Pleistocene animal remains are confined to these blow- 

 out holes along the line of the fault.* 



*Communicated by Director Frank S. Daggett of the Museum of History, Science, and 

 Art, Los Angeles, Cal. 



