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118 



THE AMERICAjST BlSOiS^S. 



in Eastern Kentucky to quite as late, or even to a later period, than on 

 the prairies adjoining the Mississippi. The extension of settlements down 

 the Mississippi Eiver would tend to hem the buffalo in on that quarter, 

 and, as will be shown later, it disappeared at nearly the same time over a 

 considerable breadth of country bordering the western shore of this river. 



4 



Schoolcraft says that the buffalo "was found in early days to have 

 crossed the Mississippi above the latitude of the mouth of the Ohio, and 



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at certain times to have thronged the present area of Kentucky/' etc.; 

 from which it may be inferred that he deemed its presence east of the 

 Mississippi River to have been of comparatively brief continuance. Gal- 

 latin also always speaks of it as having " spread from the westward " over, 

 the region east of the Mississippi. Professor Shaler has referred to the prob- 

 ability of its having been unknown to the mound-builders,* since they have 

 left nothing indicating that they were acquainted with it, which is not the 

 case with most of the other large mammals of the interior of the continent.f 

 He also states that in his exploration of the salt licks of Kentucky he had 

 found its bones in great abundance ''just below the recent mould, in a bed 

 about eighteen inches thick"; but that "in the rich deposits of extinct mam- 

 mals just beneath, immediately above which traces of worked flint were also 

 found, no buffalo bones were discovered."^ 



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, ^ _ _j 



c. 



The former Ranoe of the Buffalo west of the Rocky Mountains. 



The vast region situated between the Mississippi River and the Rocky 

 Mountains, excepting the lowlands bordering the Lower Mississippi, is well 

 known to have been formerly embraced within the range of the buffalo. So 

 well established is this fact that a special consideration of this region will be 

 deferred till the former boundaries of its range to the westward and south- 

 ward have been traced. 



Although the main chain of the Rocky Mountains has commonly been 

 supposed to form the western limit of the range of the buffalo, there is 

 abundant proof of its former existence over a vast area west of this sup- 

 posed boundary, including a large part of the so-called Great Basin of Utah, 

 the Green River Plateau, and the Plains of the Columbia. It is probably 

 not yet htilf a century since it ranged westward to the Blue Mountains of 

 Oregon and the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. 



* Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist, Vol. XHI, p. 136. 



I See further Professor Shaler' s note on this point in the Appendix. 



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