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Show byways and backwaters " Pleistocene On The Plaza: La Brea Tar Pits and minerals, insects, animals and other early residents. Strictly Strict-ly informal, there's a tad of dust here and there in startling contrast to the clear and concise tours guided by knowledgeable docents. Earily reached by traveling ocean-ward along Wilshire Boulevard, the La Brea Tar Pits are a quiet oasis in the middle of a bustling city. They can be easily visited during the same day as the L.A. County Art Museum which separates them from the Wilshire traffic. A different face of Southern California Cali-fornia for the Disneyland-bound, the La Brea tar pools are definitely the pits of a different kind! Brea to the City of Los Angeles for research. Scores of scientists, university students and archaeological archaeo-logical afficionados sift tons of soil from an open excavation daily, Monday through Saturday. Visitors can watch them toil at a distance through chain link fence or close-up through closed circuit cir-cuit television. Besides the ongoing archaelo-gical archaelo-gical work, bubbling tar pools now enclosed from the elements by pristine white concrete domes welcome guests. Sculptures of bests from those long ago days are scattered throughout the park, as if awaiting the touch of a sorcerer to reactivate them. At twilight, they seem almost to breathe, their size and grace in sharp contrast on the roaring Detroit monsters prowling the streets alongside. A small museum mus-eum offers the opportunity to view samples of the area's rocks The traffic roars daily along a chic stretch of Wilshire Boulevard, Boule-vard, often mindless of the archeological treasures to be found buffered by the modern wonder of the Los Angeles Country Art Museum. Sand -wiched between two streaming arteries of vehicles and towering concrete slab, scientists diligently, diligent-ly, patiently, tediously sift through dry California soil to recreate life as it was on that spot more than 40,000 years ago. In their patient perusal of the silt, scientists, students and volunteers revive the drama and the danger to be found in the bubbling tar of what is now known as the La Brea Tar Pits. Today, visitors can watch as they unlock the secrets of an age when giant sloths and wooly mammoths mingled in a tree shaded swamp where glass and concerete now rule. Little is left of the mysterious beauty; that held tragedy for so many creatures creat-ures who, seeking to quench their thirst, became mired in the oozing tar lining the pools' bottoms. For them, there was no escape. From them, scientists have been able to reconstruct that primeival panorama for modern man. Digging has continued since 1913 when Allan Hancock deeded deed-ed 23 acres of his Rancho La |
