The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1900-09-20
MAMMOTH REMAINS.
Reported Finding of a skull of Great
Size I'm San Nateo County,
California.


The evidences Of life belonging to
the preglacial age are rare in Califor-
mia; still a specimen has been discov-
cred near the coast in San Mateo coun-
ty, il the statement contained in
Halfmoon bay dispatch may be relied
upon A well-preserved skull Of the
mammoth is said to have been recently
taken out of the bed of pilarcitos creek
by some boys who were employed in
hauling sand at a point about q mile
east of Halfmoon bay. The skull Is
reported TO be about five feet in length
and portions Of the tusks foot long
are attached TO IL and are six inches
in diameter at the junction with the
bone. These extend into the cerebral
cavity. Bones OF the mammoth were
also found in the neighborhcod some
years ago.
The discovery Of these remains, says
the San Francisco Chronicle, is no
proof that the mammoth ever wan
dered at large during life in these parts.
The evidences are, OF course, indisput-
able that great herds Of these pregla-
cial beasts pastured in the valley OF the
Yukon and on the shores of Siberia
and the Behring sea. During some vio-
lent convulsion of nature great ice
sheets enveloped the far north, and
many Of their carcasses have been
preserved therein up to the present
time, hides, hair, flesh, bones and tusks
being found in perfect condition. Mines
of mammoth ivory were proftably
worked in Alaska long before the terri
tory became field for the search OF
gold. These mammoth remains have
been discovered in the placcrs Of the
KIondike and at other points in the
frozen banks Of the Yukon and its trib-
utaries. There would be nothing inn
probable in the assumption that tho
mammoth remains now unearthed on
Pilarcitos creek near the shores of
Halfmoon bay had been deposited at
the point where found by stranded ice
foe brought down from the far north
at some remote period by the ocean
current which sweeps down the west
ern coast Of the continent
The only evidences Of the mammoth
life which once inhabited the earth
found anywhere in the vicinity were
the footprints of the mammoth sloth
which were uncovered in the Carson
(Nev.) sandstone quarriess Wyoming
is the most fertile field on this conti-
nent, outside Of Alaska, for the fossil
remains Of the gigantic animals which
existed here in past geological ages.
The University of Wyoming has Sc
cured from the sandstoncs of that
state the largest and most perfect and
complete collection of these fossils in
existence.
II any Of these gigantic animals ever
had their habitat in California. the
changes which ice and food and other
agencies have since produced have
swept away ali traces of them. The
Calaveras skull of prehistoric man
which Bret Harte immortalized in verse
belongs 20 the world of fiction, not of
fact. Even though we are short on
fossil remains, it might not require
much straining OF the Imagination to
assume that the diminutfve horned
toad of the southern counties is the
degenerate descendant of the horned
dinosaur, which ranged from II to 10
feet in length and whose fossil remains
have been excavaied from the plains
OF Laramie, or that the nimble lizard
found everywhere in the state is the
direct descendant Of the gigantic
saurians Of the repiilian age.