MAMMALS OF MINNESOTA. * 269 
. theirgame. The number of hides shipped during a period of 
three months, beginning with this date, is reported to have 
been 43,029, and the shipment of meat 1,436,290 lbs.,” the num- 
ber killed around Fort Dodge during four months being esti- 
mated at over 100,000. During 1871 hides and meat represent- 
ing over 20,000 individuals were shipped over the Kansas 
Pacific railway. In 1876 but few remained scattered about 
their former range in that region but since then these too- 
have, it would seem, been entirely exterminated. Thous- 
ands were killed for sport and many more for no adequate 
-return—perhaps the tongue or a dainty morsel. 
Allen estimates the total destruction between 1870 and 1875 
as not less than two and one half millions annually. This ex- 
plains the nearly complete extermination except in the almost 
inaccessible regions to the far north. The flesh of the buffalo 
when young is tender and juicy but only the tongue and flesh 
of the hump are regarded as delicacies. Buffalo beef furnished 
the material for the manufacture of pemmican for the fur 
countries. It was thought by the early explorers that the 
woolly hair of the buffalo would become an article of commerce. 
The Indians spun and wove it into a variety of articles and 
ornaments but it has never been utilized by the whites. The 
bones and even the excrement are of value, the latter especi- 
ally, the so-called ‘‘buffalo-chips” have aided materially in set- 
tling the treeless regions. Without this substitute for wood it 
would have been impossible to secure fuel for many a weary mile. 
An exhaustive study of the former range of the buffalo has 
been made by Allen. They were common in Minnesota up toa 
comparatively recent time. In 1823 Major Long encountered 
thousands about Big Stone and Traverse. In 1844 Captain 
Allen encountered herds in southwestern Minnesota. ‘‘Seventy- 
five miles west of the source of the Des Moines we struck the 
range of buffalo, and continued in it to the Big Sioux river and 
down the river about eighty-six miles.” In 1850, according to 
Pope, buffaloes were abundant between the Pembina and the 
Cheyenne rivers. Stragglers seem to have visited the south- 
western part of the state as late as 1869. They were driven 
out of the region east of the Mississippi before 1835 though 
found within fifty miles of St. Paul somewhat later. 
The location of a midland route to the Pacific coast cut the 
range of the buffalo in two and the completion of the Union 
Pacific railroad made the separation permanent. The rapid 
extermination of the buffalo to the south of this line followed. 
