Show REMNANT OF AS AN A S LAND BRIDGE if one examines a map of the north pacific he will observe an island of irregular shape a little way south of behring strait called st lawrence island it lies about forty miles from the shore of asia and a little over a hundred miles from the a near eso esi point of alaska to which terri tory it belongs one hundred miles in greatest length and thirty five miles in greatest width it rises to a 0 five hundred feet toward th the east thong some of its moun tain peaks attain an altitude of two thousand feet it was the eighteenth century nav ignator vitus jonassen bering a dane though sailing under the rus rug sina flag who discovered it and and nam ed it st lawrence because he first sighted the island on st lawrence dan a saint a day of the church eskimo inhabitants on the fringe of the artic artle zone as it Is the island Is but sparsely peopled by eskimos who engage in whale seal and valrus fishing and in the trapping of wild foxes which abound once the island supported a considerable population but b because of famine and pestilence in past days the number is no ed to a scant tour four hundred grouped in tow settlements the largest nam ed gambell being situated at the northwest end of the island the united states office of edu cation maintains a school for children in each settlement and Is fostering reindeer breeding on the island sends in a boat once a year so too the weather permit ting a coast guard cutter on pon its round of the islands calls annually occasionally trading vessels anchor off shore the island being Without harbors and the region being the stormiest in all the pacific and send in small boats carrying the commodo commo di fieo at af civilization to barter tor for fox and seal skins and the accumulated stores of walrus hide and ivory the island is a fedrial bird reservation in consequence white people are not permitted to live on it and so ex capt tor for intermittent calls by passing ships the natives have no contact with white people nat not a tree Is to be seen on the is land nor even Bh shrubbery rubbery of 0 conse quence a condition which apparent ly has obtained for centuries yet fossil foliage cones andwood and wood afford abundant proof that fifty million years or so ago this barren island was covered by a dense forest of be se apparently ibi similar milar in all re aspects to the living redwoods of cal more than fifty years ago probes isor asa gray eminent botanist of harvard university declared that there was an astonishing similarity between the flora of north america and that of japan manchuria and northern china this suggested an ancient land bridge which enabled both plants and animals to pass tree free ly from one continent to the other A wealth of evidence shows that from the days of the dinosaurs down to the present there have been lar or identical animals and plants on en both continents facts strongly suggesting a former migration route beewen the two continents a land bridge so to speak cross which la in tere hanye between asla and amer ica took place convincing evidence thus the areat theres titan tic beasts allied 0 t the rhinoceros rhino ceras which lived in western america fit ty million years ago have been also found in the rocks of the gobi des ert jert dinosaur eggs first found in mongolia impre discovered tho in fragments only during the past summer in montana striking examples of similarity be tween the two continents in types 01 ol diviny animals are also to be noted thus the true alligator as found in the southeastern united states are also found in the river in china again the american moen tain sheep is more nearly related to the sheep than to any of its neighbors and further the nearest relatives roo ky moun tain goat are the goat antelopes of eastern asia plants show a like similarity A fossil tree the ancestor of the gingko tree at a native of asia only is represented in fossil de posits in washington and oregon again an elm tree now liling only in china is represented represent eid in tertiary fossil toi deposits in america to mention one other the red wood now confined to california en ton ly fossil remains of them have been faced in a coal mine in manchuria more recently still dr chaney now announces that the present barren Is land of st lawrence lay in the path way of a redwood belt once contina oua ous from america to asia in ancient timm so the evidence from the fields of botany zol geology and faleon cology considered as a whole ren pers it highly probable that the two continents were once edited other scientists and more espee lally fally in the field of archeology and in its liota loh to the origin of the american indian hold to the land bridge migration theory and feel that in the remote past man came onto this continent from asia tol fol lowing the dinosaur mayhap early or some hold toward the close ei of the glacial so that roughly estimated the time Is placed at about fifteen to twenty thousand years ago or so and in that great leng time race differences as now seen would hate hafe ample time bo to accumulate the behring strait land bridge theory t ceory has many defender defenders and this new evidence eti efi dence helps to support it extracted from a report of the carnegie institution washington D C |