THE AMERICAN BISONS. 173 
multitudes fifty years ago have hardly been sustained of late, yet I am 
inclined to the opinion that the extension of settlements in Dakota and Mon- 
tana, the navigation of the Missouri by steamers, and the construction of the 
Northern Pacific Railroad are concentrating the herds which had previously 
retreated northward from the great overland route now traversed by the 
Union Pacific Railroad, upon the tributaries of the Saskatchewan. Quite 
recently, a party of hunters in the district adjoming the country of the 
Blackfoot Indians, in longitude 110°, latitude 51°, was seven days in passing 
through a herd. The Saskatchewan district sent 17,930 buffalo-robes through 
Minnesota to market during the year ending September 30, 1872, while an 
equal number was either consumed in the country or despatched to Europe 
by vessels from York Factory, on Hudson’s Bay.” 
Respecting the present range of the buffalo in that portion of the British 
Possessions immediately north of the United States line, I have been fa- 
vored, through Principal J. W. Dawson of McGill College, Montreal, with 
the following important communication from Professor George M. Dawson, 
Geologist of the British and United States Boundary Survey, dated McGill 
College, Montreal, June 3, 1875: “Understanding from Principal Dawson 
that you wish to collect information as to the range of the buffalo in British 
North America, I have marked on the enclosed portion of a map the range 
of the animal on the forty-ninth parallel, of which alone I can speak from 
ei : Lo, e  %e~ 
% Lee des, oy Tron eR BR Pp) 
SS > é é PB yyoh™ ILLS. y ; 
BSS > ww ; = ae 
= g @ 
Re 5 wf, at | oO 
i: ee 50 wt 
ee . 
eZ ke a A. *. ah g z 
Ss Rep 2 a ame % rs 
Ne S i LE > As YP ssh a = . 
UPS = (Elle nom bene Ween oz 
La x RA ee Ng Se 
rae &/ BEAN, op [Mi ZAI a 2 
ELBA sey? LEE A ae 8 
ee ee oe ice XN Cer gm } ARR 
Lay *LLS. Burraco Sapy 18 20 iN 2 te 
LIMIT Approx L Limit oF 
FFALO Burraco cHips? 
A reduced copy of the map above referred to by Professor Dawson. 
The oblique dotted line to the right indicates approximately the eastern limit of ‘buffalo chips” in 1784; the arrows 
near the centre, the paths of migration in June, 1874; the shaded area to the left, the range in September, 1874. 
personal knowledge. During the last sixteen years it would appear that the 
buffaloes have been driven back over two hundred miles on the forty-ninth 
parallel, and now do not extend in any force beyond White Mud River, or 
Frenchman’s Creék (longitude 107° 30’). They reached this point when we 
arrived there late in June of last summer, and were going north in great 
