: THE AMERICAN BISONS. 139 
not within their favorite range; but they are at the same time enumerated 
among the animals met with about Fort McKavett,* situated some fifty miles 
to the southward of Fort Concho. 
Lieutenant Whipple, in his report of the survey of the thirty-fifth parallel, 
made in 1853, found buffalo bones bleaching near a brackish spring, just west 
of the Cross Timbers, and nearly on the 99th meridian. A few days later 
they saw the first living buffalo, and met with a few stragglers on succeeding 
days, on the sources of the Washita Branch of the Red River. He speaks 
of seeing buffalo signs as far west as Camp 44, a little east of the 102d 
meridian. The main herds, however, were north of the Canadian, from 
which these were merely stragglers.t Professor Jules Marcou, who accom- 
panied Lieutenant Whipple’s expedition as geologist, has kindly furnished me 
with a few additional particulars from his note-books. He informs me that 
the first bones of the buffalo were met with as far east as the Cross Timbers, 
or near the 98th meridian; but the region appeared not to have been visited 
by these animals for ten or twelve years. The first living buffalo was seen 
between Camps 33 and 34, about 99° 40’, just south of the Canadian. The 
: next day many carcasses were observed, and two days later five old bulls 
were seen. An old bull was killed between Camps 36 and 37, near the 
meridian of 100° 25’, but no living buffaloes were seen west of the 101st 
meridian, and no fresh signs were seen west of the 102d. All the recent 
indications of buffaloes were thus met with between the meridians of 98° 30’ 
and 102°. The journey being made in September, the herds had not re- 
turned from the north, the individuals met with being only stragglers which 
had wandered somewhat to the southward of the usual southern limit of the 
summer range. 
Captain (now Major-General) Pope in 1854 surveyed the 32d parallel, from 
El Paso and Dofia Afia, on the Rio Grande, to Preston, on the Red River, pass- 
ing northerly, and crossing the Pecos and the head-waters of the Colorado, 
Trinity, and Brazos Rivers. Mr. J. H. Byrne, in his diary of the expedition, 
reports meeting bois de vache “for the first time” at Camp No. 10, near the 
Ojo del Cuerbo, or Salt Lakes, west of the Guadeloupe Mountains, and in the’ 
Valley of the Rio Grande. This is the only allusion to buffalo or buffalo 
“sion” contained in the narrative, although the kinds and quantity of game 
* Med. Statistics, U. S. Army, 1839 — 1854, p. 391. 
+ Pacific R. R. Exploration and Surveys, Vol. II, Lieutenant Whipple’s Report on the 35th Parallel, 
Part I, pp. 26, 28, 29, 35. 
