February, 1909 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 73 
Nature's [raps 
By Charles F. Holder 
country of whose success the average citi- 
zen hears but little. They hunt with pick, 
hammer and shovel and bring down game 
a million or a dozen million years old. A 
modern goose or tiger interests him not 
at all, but a goose a million years old will 
lure him on from one region to another in a quest filled with 
hardships, whose results are seen in all the great museums, 
in the restorations of the giants which lived in ancient days. 
These hunters of bones become remarkably expert by 
studying nature, and among other things they rely upon cer- 
tain curious traps which have entombed animals untold thou- 
sands of years ago. [hey are of many kinds, but, as a 
rule, they are marshes or bogs, quicksands and lakes, or pits 
of liquid or semi-liquid asphaltum. If a bone hunter can 
locate one of these he is sure to be repaid by finding a gol- 
gotha. In fact, ancient quicksands are the most common, 
but not always easy to find, as who would think of looking 
for one on the face of a cliff forty or fifty feet above a river? 
Yet I have seen such a one not far from the little town of 
E!] Toro, California. Here a little river or creek still runs 
into the sea, and in the thousands of years of its existence it 
has cut down ten or twenty feet, or more, into the soil and 
flowed on quietly with no suggestion of a trap to deer or 
any animal that might stand in its waters to drink. 
In the great asphaltum lake of Trinidad is one of the 
most remarkable traps in the world, containing in its black 
heart the remains of countless animals which in various ages 
have been caught in its treacherous folds. While it is diff- 
cult to conceive a lake of asphaltum or tar, this is a lake 
in every sense of the term. It covers over one hundred 
acres, and is really one of the wonders of the world. Its 
surface is as black as ink, broken with pools of inky looking 
material formed of soft bitumen, with here and there bub- 
bling spots or craters and cracks from which issues a dis- 
agreeable odor of sulphuretted hydrogen. It is altogether 
an unpleasant sight, and almost seems to have a life of its 
own, as no matter how much may be taken it oozes up again 
and the surface is again smooth. Small birds and insects, 
and even herons, are to-day caught in the openings, fall and 
become absorbed by the black mass. In its depths, where sec- 
tions have been removed, the remains of countless skeletons 
have been found, telling the story of the trap that for ages 
has been storing away its victims, holding them down in its 
oily depths. 
There are a number of such traps in the United States. 
An interesting one has been known for fifty years in South- 
ern California. It is a small lake or deposit of liquid asphal- 
tum, midway between the City of Los Angeles and the ocean, 
in the shadow of the Sierra Santa Monica range. There is 
every evidence of great age to the lake. I saw this lake first 
in 1886. It was from a distance an innocent pool, and 
about it were white herons and curlews. The old ranchers 
considered it a dangerous trap for their cattle, and it was 
said various animals had been lost in its depths. At that 
time the great oil industry of Los Angeles had not been 
started, and the deposit of tar and asphalt did not attract 
much attention, as it was known that there were other simi- 
lar ones in Southern California—one in Ventura, another 
north of Santa Barbara, and one out at sea, from which oil 
oozes up, so that a great patch of water is always smooth. 
Off the port of Redondo there is an asphalt spring, and the 
beach is often littered with tar that is washed ashore. Such 
quantities are found at times alongshore that the rocks are 
splashed with it, and large turtles caught sometimes have 
their mouths full of it. 
The Los Angeles “‘trap” is found near the electric line be- 
tween the towns of Sawtelle and Hollywood, in sight of the 
ocean. Without doubt it is one of the most valuable traps 
to science in the country, as possibly for a million years it has 
been in active operation, changing year after year in density, 
according to the heat, the slimy, sticky mass bubbling up to 
entomb and trap various animals. The asphalt in some 
places appears to be made up almost entirely of bones that 
have been accumulating for ages, and paleontologists have 
found that many of them relate to a past age. The quarry 
has been excavated in places to a depth of twenty feet, and 
doubtless bones and perfect skeletons might be found at 
greater depths. 
This innocent pool has lured animals into its oozy depths 
for countless ages; ducks, geese, herons, cranes, shore birds of 
every kind, insects—all the small animals of the section that 
would go down to a pool to drink have been caught and 
trapped. Coyotes, wild cats, bear, wolf, badgers, weasels, 
gophers, civit cats, skunks, coons—all have been caught here. 
Then we enter the past ages, as here is the skeleton of the big 
saber-toothed tiger, a contemporary of the mastodon and 
mammoth, evidences of both of which have been found here. 
In 1887 I saw the blackened tooth of a mastodon, said to 
have been taken here. From the number of excellent skeletons 
of the saber-toothed tiger it is evident that at one time the 
animai was very common in Southern California. The animal 
was, if anything, larger than the Indian tiger, and had tusks 
of extraordinary nature, virtual poignards with which the 
animal struck terrific downward blows, stabbing the enemy. 
As numbers of extinct horses have been found in this trap, 
especially colts, it is easy to imagine that they may have 
been followed by the saber-toothed tiger. Here have been 
discovered the remains of an early bison, antelope, elk and 
deer, as well as a camel—animals which were chased into the 
deposit by the big tigers and wolves of the period; in fact 
one of the common victims of this trap, that is still set for 
the unwary, is the big wolf that doubtless ran about the trap 
and was entombed in an attempt to reach other victims. The 
most interesting remains found here are those of a sloth, 
which may have been larger than a bison. Its claws were 
found, and over the bones of a skeleton were discovered 
the pebble-like bones of the skin. 
How long this trap has been in operation no one can say, 
but it doubtless dates back to early Cenozoic time, which 
is supposed to represent about 3,000,000 years, and complete 
excavations may result in the discovery of all the strange 
animals of the Quaternary period. The animals which wan- 
dered around this trap represented a strange diversity from 
those of to-day. They were giants, and among them were 
several elephants, a huge mastodon, several horses much 
larger than the present horse, a giant ox, bison, a monster 
tapir, bears many times larger than those still found in 
Texas or New Mexico, a species of wild hog, and the giant 
sloths—Megatherium, Mylodon and Megalonyx—ground 
sloths of vast size, the Megatherium being eighteen feet in 
length; an animal that must have weighed many tons and 
which easily pulled large trees to the ground. 
