236 APPENDIX. 
which had doubtless disappeared before the coming of any race of men that 
has as yet been identified in this country. 
The succession of events in this region, as far as the species of bison are 
concerned, seems to have been somewhat as follows, viz. : — 
Ist. The existence of the Bison latifrons in company with the mammoth 
and its contemporaries,—the mastodon, musk ox (Bootherium cavifrons), ete. 
This species, like its contemporaries, by its size gave evidence of the even 
climate and abundant vegetation of the time just following, and probably in 
part during the glacial period. 
2d. The disappearance of this fauna, followed by the coming of a race 
{mound-builders) that retained no distinct traditions, and have left no art 
records of the presence of any of the large animals of the preceding time. 
3d. The disappearance of this race from the region north of the Tennessee, 
probably leaving representatives in the Natchez group of Indians, followed 
by the occupation of the country by a race that greatly extended the limits of 
the treeless plains to the eastward, and so permitted the coming of the modern 
bison into this region. — 
I have long been disposed to look upon the succeeding glacial periods 
as the most effective causes of the changes that led to the determination 
of new specific characters among animals, and I am strongly disposed to 
think that in the B. americanus we have the descendant of the B. dalifrons 
modified by existence in the new conditions of soil and climate to which 
it was driven by the great changes closing the last ice age. 
When the exploration of Big Bone Lick is completed, it will doubtless 
show that there was an interval of some thousands of years between those 
two species. 
eo i nd 
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