156 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
from camp, we ascended to the top of a high hill, and for a great distance 
ahead. every square mile seemed to have a herd of buffalo upon it. Their 
number was variously estimated by the members of the party, some as high 
as half a million. I do not think it is any exaggeration to set it down at 
200,000. I had heard of the myriads of these animals inhabiting these 
plains, but I could not realize the truth of these accounts till to-day, when 
they surpass everything I could have imagined from the accounts which I 
had received.” * 
According to Assistant Surgeon Asa Wall, buffaloes were still common 
about Fort Abercrombie, on the Red River, as late as 1858.t 
Mr. W. H. Illingworth, the well-known photographer of St. Paul, informs 
me that m 1866, when he made a journey from St. Cloud westward to the 
Yellowstone, he met with immense herds for two days in passing the Coteau 
des Prairies, west of the James River. They seem to have wholly dis- 
appeared east of the Missouri soon after this date, surviving in Southern 
Dakota, however, between the James and Missouri Rivers, for some years 
after their extermination over the plains of the Red River. As already 
stated, they were exterminated east of the Red River as early as about the 
year 1850,{ and, being at that time rapidly pressed westward by the Red 
River hunters, were wholly exterminated during the few years next follow- 
ing throughout the whole basin of the Red River, and even throughout the 
whole of the northern half of Dakota. In Southern Dakota, between the 
James and the Missouri, they lingered for some years later, but wholly dis- 
appeared east of the Missouri prior to the year 1870. 
Region between the Upper Missouri and 49th Parallel.—The former existence 
of the buffalo over the whole of the region drained by the Upper Missouri 
is well substantiated by the evidences they themselves have left, and which 
exist in the form of well-defined trails and osseous remains. When Lewis and 
Clarke ascended the Missouri in 1804, they met with them at frequent points 
along almost its whole course, from the mouth of the Big Sioux to the Forks, § 
and subsequent explorers found them on its remotest sources. As late as 
1856 this whole region was occupied, at least temporarily, by roving 
bands. Lambert, in his general report respecting the topography of this 
* Pacific R. R. Rep. of Expl. and Surveys, Vol. XI, pt. 1, p. 59. 
+ Med. Statistics U. S. Army, 1855 — 1860, p. 34. 
t See above, p. 144. 
§ Expedition, etc., Vol. I, pp. 67, 75, 77, et seq. 
