Arizona republican., 1917-01-06
WILD L|FE IN ANCIENT AMERICA
 AMAZINGLY ABUNDANT |S REPORT

NASUINGTON. Jan. 5.-Although the wild life Of North America is more abundant than that oI the other con- tinents of the northern hemisphere and has only Africa as n world rival. yet our present day richness in this respect is decidedly poor compared with the abundance and variety or mammalian life that roamed our plains before the advent of the white man. while the vast number of spe- cies which disappeared even before the Indians came to inhabit the land is even more astonishing.
 In communication to the National Geographic Society, E. ". Nelson. chief of the United States geological survey, gives an amazing account of ! North American wild life in prehistor- i ic times. X portion Of the comrnuni- cation has been made public by the [ society in the following bulletin:
 The original buffalo herds have i been estimated to have contained from 30 000000 to G0,000, GOO animals Cthe latter figure is G.0O0.0o0 greater than ! the total number of cattle in the i United States according 10 the census of lsI0), and In 1870 IL was estimated i that about 5,500 GOO still survived-ex- ceedlng by l.4o0900 the number of { mules in the United States in 1910. A number of men now living were priv 1 ileged 10 see some Of the great herds of the west before they were finally destroyed. Dr George Bird Grinnell writes:
 In 1870. I happened to be on a ! train that was stopped for three hours to let q herd Of buffalo pass. 1 We supposed they would soon pass l by. but they kept on coming. On a number of occasions in earlier days | the engineers thought that they could run through the herds, and that see i ing the locomotive. the buffalo would stop to turn aside: but after a few locomotives had been ditched by the animals the engineers got in the way of respecting the buffaloes idiosyn- | cracies.'
 Astonishing As was the number oi l buffalo which roamed she plains of 1 old. even more numerous were the antelope, though the latter did not attract IS much attention as the lar i ger mammals. Besides these the chroniclers of the colonial days give many interesting accounts of the in l creditable number of other wild ami mals, including bears. wapiti white | tailed deer. and turkeys. on which the wolves made fierce war. One writer narrates that during the winter of l6T0-1l fully 2,400 moose were snareu on tke Great Menitoulin Island at the head of Lake Huron.
 The wealth of animal life found by our borebears was one of the great ! natural resources of the new world Although freely drawn upon from the first, the stock was but little de- pleted up to within a century Dur
 ing the last 100 years. however the rapidly increasing occupation of the continent and other causes, together with q steadily increasing commercial demand for animal products. have had an appalling effect. The buffalo, elk and antelope are reduced to a pitiful fraction of their former countless numbers.
 Practically all other large game has alarmingiy decreased and it's extern, nation has heen partly stayed only by the recent enforcement of protec- tive laws.
 The recent great abundance oi large land mammals in North Amer iea, both in individuals and species
 Is in striking contrast with their scarcity in South Amerca. the diff ference evidently being; Cue to the long isolation of the southern continent from other iand-masses. whence it might have been restocked after the loss of q formerly existing fauna.
 The fossil beds of the Great Plains I of North America and other parts of the west contain eloquent proofs oi the richness and variety of mammal life )n this continent at different periods in the past. Perhaps the most wonderful of all these ancient 'I faunas was that revealed by the bones of birds and mammals which had been trapped in the asphalt pits recently discovered in the outskirts of Los Angeles. California. These bones show
 that prior to the arrival of the pres eni fauna the plans of southern Cali fornis, swarmed with an astonishing wealth of strange birds and beasts
 The most notable of these are sah.r-
 toothed tigers. lions much larger thar
 those of Africa: giant wolves: sev- eral kinds of bears. including the huge cave bears. even larger than the gi- galtic brown bears of Alaska: large
 wild horses camels, bison (unlike oui buffalo}: tiny antelope. the size of. ]
 fox mastodorsI, mamnoths with tusks
 IT feet long; and giant ground sloths; in addition to many other specie. larg, and small