146 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
ant J. W. Abert found them as far east as 97° 32’* Lieutenant Abert 
reports meeting with them the following year near the 98th meridian, just 
west of which he found them in immense herds.t 
Lewis and Clarke, in ascending the Missouri River in 1804, first met with 
buffaloes at the mouth of the Kansas River, but state that they did not 
become common till they reached the Sioux River.t Bradbury found them 
in 1810 at Floyd’s Bluff’ Audubon says that when he and his party went 
up the Missouri River in 1843, “the first buffalo were heard of near Fort 
Leavenworth, some having a short time before been killed within forty miles 
of that place. We did not, however,” he says, “see any of these animals 
until we had passed Fort Croghan, but above this point we met with them 
almost daily, either floating dead on the river or gazing at our steamboat 
from the shore.” § 
As early as 1834, Murray, in his journey westward from Fort Leaven- 
worth into the Indian country, first met with buffaloes on the Republi- 
can, || showing that they had already become extinct or of uncertain occur- 
rence in Eastern Kansas. Frémont, in 1842, in marching northwestward 
from Fort Leavenworth to the Platte River, by way of the Kansas River, 
came suddenly upon great herds just above Grand Isle, in about longitude 
99° 30°, or near the present site of Fort Kearney. The following year 
(1843), in crossing the plains considerably to the southward of his route of 
the previous year, he first met with the buffilo on the divide between the 
Solomon and the Republican Forks, also near the 99th meridian. Emory, 
in 1846, says that the range of the buffalo along the Arkansas was “ west- 
ward, between the ninety-eighth and the one hundred and first meridians of 
longitude.” ** In 1849 Stansbury saw no buffaloes east of the Forks of the 
Platte, but found them in abundance to the westward of this point. Captain 
Stansbury’s guide reported to him that not many years before the plains 
somewhat to the east of Fort Kearney were black with herds of buffaloes “as 
far as the eye could reach.” tt 
* Congress. Rep., 29th Congr., 1st Sess., House Ex. Doc. No. 2. p. 217. 
t Notes of a Military Reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth, Mo., to San Diego, Cal. Congress. Rep, 
30th Congr., 1st Sess., Sen. Doc. No. 7, p. 11. : 
t Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Vol. I, pp. 19, 67. 
§ Quadrupeds of North America, Vol. I, p. 50. 
|| Travels in North America, Vol. I, pp. 208, 227. 
{] Frémont’s Explorations during 1842, 43, and "44, pp. 18, 25, 49, 57, 109, et Seq. 
** Emory (W. H.), Notes of a Military Reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth to San Diego, Cali- 
fornia, p. 16. 
tt Stansbury’s Expedition to the Great Salt Lake, pp. 29, 36. 
t > PI ? 
