THE BUFFALO AND HIS FATE. , 163 
only about the latest vents of the saline waters, which 
have from time to time changed their points of escape. 
from the ground. The caverns of Kentucky and Tennes- 
see, which were the homes of the aboriginal people of the 
region, and receptacles for their dead, and where have been 
found skeletons of the beaver, deer, wolf, bear, and many 
other mammals, have never yielded any bones of the bison. 
Moreover, among all the many figures of animals and birds 
found on the pottery and ornaments of the prehistoric races 
of the West, the marked form of the buffalo does not ap- 
pear, making it presumable that this animal was unknown 
to the people who built the mounds. Professor Shaler is of 
the opinion, held by many ethnologists, that the “ mound- 
builders” were essentially related to the Natchez group of 
Indians, and were driven southward by ruder tribes of red- 
men from the north and north-west. The Indians north of 
the Ohio are known to have been much in the habit of 
burning the forests, and no doubt the invaders alluded 
to above signalized their advance by such conflagrations. 
This making of plains by the repeated burning of forests, 
aided by “ the continued decrease of the rainfall, which was 
a concomitant of the disappearance of the glacial period,” 
permitted the buffalo to advance rapidly eastward as far as 
the Alleghanies, and, coincidently, as far as the mound- 
