_ J.^_WHX^ J C _■- -K ^ \- ■*- ^ F-¥r ri—1 r. **-•- *«#*>! X 



■^JhT-XiVJ"*' 



136 



THE AMERICAN BISOIs^S, 



lis, for the grass, short as it was, rose up after having been trodden down, as 



straight and fresh as ever. 



"Another very astonishing thing is that on the eastern margin of one of 

 the salt hikes, towards the south, was found a spot almost half a musket shot 

 long, entirely covered with buffalo bones, to the height of twelve feet, and 

 eighteen feet broad, which is surprising in a desert country, where no one 

 could have brought these bones together. It is pretended that when the 

 lake is troubled by the North winds, it throws upon the opposite shore the 

 bones of all animals which have perished in coming to drink." * 



Any one who has seen the buffaloes on their native plains can but recog- 

 nize the faithfulness of these details^ which are remarkable for their minute- 

 ness and exact truthfulness. They are farther worthy of note from being 

 the first descriptions of the buffalo ever published. 



During the exploration of the different portions of the Great Plains, from 

 the time of Lewis and Clarke, Pike, Long, and others, dowii to the later ex- 

 peditions of Fremont, Stansbury, Emory, Marcy, Stimpson, Pope, Sitgreaves, 

 and others, and the explorations for ^^ a railroad route from the Mississippi 

 River to the Pacific Ocean" in 1853-55, buffaloes, or recent traces of them, 

 were found everywhere from the Missouri and Upper Mississippi Kivers w^est- 

 ward to the remotest valleys of the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, 

 from the plains of Texas northward to the 49th parallel. In the further 

 account of this vast territory it is hence necessary to trace only their extir- 

 pation over the very large portion from which they have disappeared, .. 



- Long prior to the time of the later 



Neiv Mi 





explorations above mentioned, the buffalo had disappeared from the eastern 

 border of the plains south of the Platte River. Even as early as the begin- 

 ning of the present century the range of the buffalo had begun to be mate- 

 rially restricted, these animals having at that time been apparently wholly 

 exterminated south of the Rio Grande, while they had also disappeared from 

 he adjoining portions of Texas. They appear also to have wholly disap- 

 peared in Texas south of the Colorado River prior to the year 1840. Before 

 this date they had also receded far from the coast, and no longer ranged west 

 of the Pecos Eiver, either in Texas or New Mexico ; they occupying at this 

 time only a narrow oblique belt through the middle portion of the State, 

 varying from one hundred to two hundred miles in breadth, and widening 

 rapidly as it approached the northern border of the State. From Texas 



* Davis's Spanlsli Conquest of New Mexico, pp. 206, 207, footnote- 



y 



If. 









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