THE AMERICAN BISONS. i 
In respect to the recent destruction of the buffalo north of the United 
States, Mr. J. W. Taylor, United States Consul at Winnipeg, B. N. A., whose 
valuable communication on the buffalo has been previously quoted, informs 
me that about eighteen thousand robes were sent to the Minnesota market 
from the Saskatchewan district alone during the year ending September 
30, 1872, while as many more were either consumed in the country or sent 
to Europe by the way of York Factory, or about forty thousand in all. By 
far the larger part of the buffaloes killed in the Saskatchewan district, how- 
ever, are converted into pemmican and dried meat, and, being killed in 
summer, do not enter at all into the above statement made by Mr. Taylor. 
From these data it is evident that the destruction of the buffalo in the Sas- 
katchewan region in 1872 must have amounted to considerably more than a 
million, and these mainly cows. 
In forming a general estimate of the annual destruction of the buffalo in 
recent years, it is necessary to add to the large sums already given the large 
number killed by the different Indian tribes still residing in or near the 
ranges of the two herds, as well as the thousands killed for frontier con- 
sumption, and the many thousands more of which no use is made. Even 
approximate data for the last-named elements of the problem of course do 
not exist, but the total killed between 1870 and 1875 cannot have been less 
than about two and a half millions annually. The effect of this destruction 
upon the already terribly thinned herds has been most marked, and if con- 
tinued at a proportional rate will unquestionably in a few years exterminate 
the race. 
2.— PRODUCTS OF THE BUFFALO. 
The flesh of the buffalo is, of course, its most important product, either to 
the white man or the Indian. It has not only always formed a large part 
of the food of the Indian tribes living within its range, but has also proved 
hardly less important to the whites during their first exploration oft the 
country it inhabited. The various military and other surveys of the great 
central plateau of the continent, as well as the numerous private expedi- 
tions to the same region, could have been accomplished only at greatly 
increased expense and privation had not the buffalo supplied to the per- 
sons engaged in these enterprises a never-failing and ready means of sub- 
sistence. 
