!*S 





LUAi— 



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120 



THE AMEEICA^ EISO^S. 



t.: 



period, since their skulls occur wliolly buried in the marshes about the 

 lake, where the deposition appears to have been quite slow. I am also 

 informed by Mr. H. W. Henshaw, the well-known ornithologist of Lieuten- 

 ant Wheeler's Survey, that their skulls have been found in Utah Lake. 



Mr. Ilenshaw 



follows : 



9 



Wash 





writes as 



" The only information I have regarding its [the buffalo's] presence in Utah 

 was derived from Mr. Madsen, a Danish fisherman, living on the borders of 

 Utah Lake ; and, I may add, I am perfectly convinced of the trustworthi- 

 ness of his statement. In using the seine in the waters of the lake, he has 

 on several occasions brought up from the bottom the skulls of buffaloes, in a 

 very good state of preservation. Their presence in the lake may perhaps 

 be accounted for on the supposition that, in crossing on the ice, a herd may 



h 



at some time have broken through, and thus perished. From him I also 

 learned that he had talked with Indians of middle age whose fathers had 

 told them that in their time the buffaloes were numerous, and that they had 

 hunted them near the lake. If this can be accepted as truth, it would place 

 the existence of these animals in Utah back to a not very distant date, 

 learn from my friend, W. W. Howell, that during the past season he obtained 

 the cranium of a bufialo, which was unearthed by some laborers while dig- 

 o-ino- a mill-race, at a depth of ten feet below the surface. Thi 

 broad canon near Gunnison. While, from the fact of its ben 

 very exact estimate can be made of the time of its deposit, there seemed 

 every evidence that the soil above it had remained undisturbed for a long 

 time. The lower portion of the cranium is gone, leaving the part above the 

 orbits, and the horn-cores, intact and in an excellent state of preservation. 

 A comparison of this with a recent specimen of the B. americanus shows that 

 in certain characters it exhibits an approach to the Bison latifrons, as described 

 by Leldy. In size it varies little from the B. americanus, but in all other 



I 



s was m a 



lattfj 



^ 



The buffalo seems, however, to have lingered later on the head-waters of 

 the Colorado than in either the Great Salt Lake Valley, or the valley of Bear 

 River, or on the head-waters of the two main forks of the Columbia. Fre- 

 mont found them on St. Train's Fork of Green River, and on the Vermihon 



r 



in 1844,t and Stansbury, in 1849, found them on the northern tributaries of 



* Its ao-reement in size with Bison americanus is sufficient to indicate its identity with that species, 

 f Eirst and Second Expeditions, etc., p. 281. 



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