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102 



THE AMERICAN EISOI^S. 



the State of Mississippi, also diagonally, from the southeast to the Borth- 

 west.* De Soto learned nothing respecting the buffalo, save the report 

 brought him by the soldiers whom he sent northward from Northern 



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Georgia into the present State of Tennessee^ till after he crossed the 



Mississippi. 



Du Pratz states (in a work published in 1758) that the Indians of Lower 



Louisiana leave that country in winter to hunt the buffalo, as this animal, 

 he says/ cannot come thither on account of the thickness of the forest.f 

 Adair, who spent several years in this region prior to 1770, and who de- 

 scrij3es with considerable minuteness all the low country bordering the Gulf 

 Coast east of the Mississippi Eiver,t makes no mention of the existence there 

 of the buffixlo, although he gives a general account of the game animals, and 

 speaks especially of the abundance of the deei", bears, and turkeys. Gal- 

 latin § gives the Tennessee River as their southern limit, and I have found 

 no positive reference to their occurrence south of that boundary. On an 

 old map, II published originally in 1718, and reproduced in facsimile in French's 



between the 



region 



^^ Historical Collections of Louisiana" (Vol. II), the 

 Cumberland and Ohio" Rivers is marked as follows: ^^ Desert de six vint lieiies 

 detendue on les Ilinois font la Chasse des hoeifsr They are well known to have 

 been formerly abundant in the region about Nashville, and they probably 

 extended southward nearly or quite to the Tennessee, as a stream called 

 Buffalo River forms one of the tributaries of Duck River, itself one of the 

 principal tributaries of the Tennessee from the eastward. 



F 



* For authorities on the Koute of De Soto, see Biedma's Narrative, and that of the Gentleman of 

 Elvas, in French's Historical Collection of Louisiana, Vol. II, and in the Plakluyt Society's publications 

 (1851), with an Introduction, Notes, and a Map by W. B. Rye ; McCulloch's Researches ; Gallatin's Sy- 

 nopsis of the Indian Tribes (Archasologia Americana, Vol. II) ; Pickett's History of Alabama, etc.; Nut- 

 talFs Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory ; Meek's Sketches of the History of Alabama (South- 

 ron Monthly Magazine and Review, 1839); Monette's History of the Discovery and Settlement of the 

 Valley of the Mississippi; Bancroft's History U. S. ; Irving's Conquest of Florida; Schoolcraft's His- 

 tory, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Part HI, pp. 37-50, pi. xliv; 



t-^L(_>** CLC-t 



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t History of Louisiana, Engl, ed., pp. 254, 255. 

 % History of the American Indians (London, 1775), pp. 223 - 375. 



§ " Colonies of the buffaloes had traversed the Mississippi, and were at one time abundant in the forest 

 country between the lakes and the Tennessee River, south of which I do not believe they were ever seen." 



Trans. Am, ElJinolggical Soc, Vol. II, p- k 

 II Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississippi. Dressee sur un grand nombre de Memoircs entrau 

 tres ceux sur de M^ le Maire par Guill'^""^ De l'Islk de I'Acadcmie R'^ des Sciences. 



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