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92 



THE AMEEICAK BISOJSTS. 



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As already remarked, the only well-authenticated 



instances of the occurrence of buffaloes east of the Blue Eidge is the appar- 



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ently casual passage of small bands through the mountains from West Vir- 

 ginia; Kentucky, and Tennessee, into the upper parts of North and South Caro- 

 lina, by way of the New, Holston and French Broad Rivers. * Audubon and 



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Bachman state that '^ the Bison formerly existed in South Carolina, on the 

 sea-board^ and we are informed," say these authors, ^^ that from the last seen 

 in that State two were killed in the vicinity of Columbia." f .But they have 

 neglected to add the date of the capture, or the authority on which the state- 



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ment is made. They state, however, that "Lawson speaks of two buffaloes 

 that were killed on Cape Fear River, in North Carolina." Lawson's state- 

 ment in full is as follows : "This day [Sunday, February 1, 1700], the King 

 sent out all his able Hunters, to kill Game for a great Feast, that was to be 

 kept at their Departure, from the Town This Evening [same day] 



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came down some Toteros, tall, Hkely Men, having great Plenty of Buffeloes, 

 Elks, and Bears, with other sort of Deer amongst them." % " The Toteros^' he 

 says, "a neighboring Nation came down from the Westward Mountains to 

 the Sapona8^'\ etc. Lawson was now on the '\ Sapona River," in or near the 

 mountains, || which was apparently one of the sources of the Cape Fear 



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from the occurrence of the teeth of the bison and of the walrus, which were dug out of the beds at a 

 distance of fifteen feet from the top of the clay, during Sir Charles Lyell's second visit to this country. 

 .... The intermingling of the bones of the walrus and bison in the same beds shows the (^reat rano-e both 

 of Arctic and Temperate forms during this period."^ Jf^m. BosL Soc. Nat, Hist.j Vol. I, p. 243. 



Again he says : " Teeth of the Walrus and the Bison were discovered by Sir Charles Lyell in the 

 clay-beds of Gardiner, Maine. These are still preserved in a private collection. The association in the 

 glacial clays of the remains of the Bison with those of the Walrus, and the mindinn; of the arctic animals 

 and plants with those now confined to British North America and New England, show that the chmate, 

 during the glacial period, was a little warmer than that of Southern Greenland at present." — .-Im. NaL 

 V^ol. I, p. 268, footnote. 



* Gallatin says : " The gap through which they [the buffaloes] passed to the Atlantic rivers is undoubt- 

 edly that of moderate elevation and gentle ascent, which divides a northeastern source of the Roanoke 

 from the great Kenawha, called the New R,iver, and through which the State of Virginia is now attempt- 

 ing to open a communication from James Kiver to the Ohio." — Trans. Am, Etlinological Soc, Vol. 11, 

 p. li. 



t Quadrupeds North America, Vol. II, p. 55. 



X History of Carolina, p. 48 (London, 1718). 

 § Ibid,, p. 47. ' . ■ 



II' A rude map of North and South Carohna accompanies his journal, but on the map the word So,ponas 

 does not occur. The context, however, shows that he was in the northeastern part of the present State of 



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North Carolina, on the sources of the Cape Fear Kiver. Briekell says, however, in his Natural History of 

 North Carolina, published in 1737 : " The Sapona Indians live at the West branch of the Cape Fear, or 



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