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THE AMERICAN BISO^^S. 



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region south of the Sweet Water, as in the country north of the Great Pass. 

 This partial distribution can only be accounted for in the great pastoral 

 beauty of that country, which bears marks of having long been one of their 

 favorite haunts, and by the fact that the white hunters have more frequented 



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the northern than the southern region, ^ it being north of the South Pass 

 that the hunters, trappers, and traders have had their rendezvous for many 

 years past ; and from that section also the greater portion of the beaver and 

 rich furs were taken, although always the most dangerous, as well as the 

 most profitable, hunting-ground. 



"In that region lying between the Green or Colorado River and the head- 

 waters of the Kio del Norte, over the Yampak^ Kooyah^ White^ and Grand Rivers, 



of which are the Avaters of the Colorado,- — -the buffalo never extended 

 so far westward as they did on the waters of the Columbia; and only in one 

 or two instances have they been known to descend as far west as the mouth 

 of White River. In travelling through the country west of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, observation readily led me to the impression that the buffalo had for 

 the first time crossed that range to the waters of the Pacific only a few years 

 prior to the period we are considering; and in this opinion I am sustained 

 by Mr. Fitzpatrick, and the older trappers in that country. In the region 

 west of the Rocky Mountains we never meet with any ancient vestiges 

 which, throughout all the country lying upon their eastern waters, are found 

 in the great Mghwai/s^ continuous for hundreds of miles, always several 

 inches and sometimes several feet in depth, which the buffalo have made 

 in crossing from one river to another, or in traversing the mountain ranges. 

 The Snake Indians, more particularly those low down upon Lewis's Fork, 

 have always been very grateful to the American trappers for the great kind- 



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ness (as they frequently expressed it) which they did to them in driving the 

 buffalo so low down the Columbia River." * 



It would thus seem to be Fremont's belief that their occupation of the 

 Snake River country was temporary, and that they did not pass west of the 

 mountains till driven thither, at a comparatively recent period, by persecu- 

 tion east of the mountains. That they were absent from this region not 

 long previously appears evident from the fact that Lewis and Clarke, in 

 1805, met with no buffaloes west of the mountains, nor even on the upper 

 portion of the three forks of the Missouri, although there was evidence of 



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* 



Report o£ the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, in the year 1842, and to Oregon and 



California, in the years 1843-44, p. 144. 



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