Nov. 21, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
A DEATH TRAP OF ASPHALT. 
m 
From an asphalt bed situated near Los An¬ 
des, Cal., Prof. John C. Merriam, of the Uni- 
ersity of California, not long ago recovered 
ie skeletons of many prehistoric animals 
nlike any now known in the world. Among 
lese were giant saber-tooth tigers, huge sloths, 
rolves of enormous size and elephants. The 
tory of this discovery printed not long ago in 
ie Sunset Magazine, is well worth reading. 
This sticky pool of water and tar was a death 
rap for thousands of centuries. Here, aeons 
go, the anormous ground sloth, which was 
irger than an ordinary ox; the huge prehistoric 
nammoth, the great extinct camel, a strange 
nd now unknown species of deer, came to 
[rink, only to be held relentlessly in the im- 
dacable clutches of the death trap. 
. The saber-tooth tiger, marauding for his prey, 
,nd the huge antedeluvian wolf, the largest of 
tis kind, and once common to California, see- 
ng the mighty herbiverous creatures of the 
.lain in their mad' death throes in the hungry 
)Ool, sprang upon them, only to meet a like 
ate, and to be preserved for all time for the en- 
ightenment of a future era. 
In the great pool Professor Merriam and his 
ssistants have unearthed no less than fifty good 
,kulls, with parts of many other skeletons of 
.rehistoric animals. 
Excellent specimens of over twenty saber- 
ooth tigers have so far been recovered. A 
Mounted specimen now at the University of 
California has a skeleton a little larger than the 
firdinary African lion. The teeth or sabers of 
hese huge cats were used for cutting with a 
lownward stroke as is indicated by the con- 
ormation of the bones of the head. 
More remarkable almost than the huge saber- 
ooth tiger is the giant wolf, whose bones 
ound in this strange pool proclaim it the largest 
nernber of the dog family that has ever ex- 
sted. Aside from a single tooth and a few 
ragmentary remains, no specimens had here- 
ofore been found of this huge canine, which 
anks as rare among evidences of extinct gi¬ 
gantic mammals as the recent discovery of the 
chthyosaurus, of which only two perfect speci- 
nens exist in the world, one in the New York 
Vluseum of Natural Plistory and one of lesser 
legree of excellence in the British Museum. 
The huge pool, which at dusk presents the ap- 
learance of a drinking pool, has been the grave 
)f innumerable grass-eating animals whose 
leath struggles lured the carnivorse. The most 
.lsual extinct species of the hoofed herbiverous 
inimals that came to the pool to drink are the 
A r ild horses and bison. This horse, which was 
ibout the size of the race horse of to-day, be¬ 
came completely extinct and is not the pro¬ 
genitor of the wild horses of the plains which 
were introduced by the Spaniards. 
Occurring less frequently are camels, deer, 
goats and a small and previously unknown deer¬ 
like animal and the mammoth. There have 
also been unearthed by the experts of the uni¬ 
versity many remarkable and extinct species of 
hawks, eagles, ducks and other birds, which in 
countless centuries past were lured to the pool 
by the helpless struggles of some feeble rabbit, 
ground squirrel or other rodent, upon the sur¬ 
face of the hungry oil pit. Beetles and insects 
innumerable have been found imbedded in the 
solid asphalt and in such a remarkable state of 
preservation that were they not unknown it 
would be difficult to imagine that they had been 
entombed a million yesterdays ago. 
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of these 
amazing discoveries from a scientific viewpoint 
is the fact that they give a comparatively enorm- 
our collection of prehistoric relics representing 
the fauna of California at one place and during 
a contemporaneous period. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from 
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