THE AMEEICAN" EISONS, 



139 



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not within their favorite range; but they are at the same time enumerated 

 among the animals met with about Fort McKavett^* situated some fifty miles 

 to the southward of Fort Concho. 



Lieutenant Whipple, in his report of the survey of the thirty-fifth parallel^ 

 made in 1853, found buffalo bones bleaching near a brackish spring, just west 

 of the Cross Timbers, and nearly on the 99th meridian. A few days later 

 they saw the first living buffalo, and met with a few stragglers on succeeding 

 days, on the sources of the Washita Branch of the Red River. He speaks 

 of seeing buffalo signs as far west as Camp 44, a little east of the 102d 

 meridian. The main herds, however, were north of the Canadian, from 

 which these were merely stragglers.f Professor Jules Marcou, who accora- 

 panied Lieutenant Whipple's expedition as geologist, has kindly furnished me 



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with a few additional particulars from his note-books. He informs me that 

 the first bones of the buflalo were met with as far east as the Cross Timbers, 

 or near the 98th meridian ; but the region appeared not to have been visited 

 by these animals for ten or twelve years. The first living bufialo w^as seen 

 between Camps 33 and 34, about 99° 40', just south of the Canadian. The 

 next day many carcasses were observed, and two days later five old bulls 

 were seen. An old bull was killed between Camps 36 and 37, near the 



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meridian of 100° 25', but no living buffaloes were seen west of the 101st 

 meridian, and no fresh signs were seen west of the 102d. All the recent 

 indications of buffaloes were thus met with between the meridians of 98° 30' 



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and 102°. The journey being made in September, the herds had not re- 

 turned from the north, the individuals met with being only stragglers which 

 had wandered somewhat to the southward of the usual southern limit of the 



summer ranf>:e. 



Captain (now Major-General) Pope in 1854 surveyed the 32d parallel, from 

 El Paso and Dona Ana, on the Rio Grande, to Preston, on the Red River, pass- 

 ing northerly, and crossing the Pecos and the head-waters of the Colorado, 

 Trinity, and Brazos Rivers. Mr. J. H. Byrne, in his diary of the expedition, 

 reports meeting bois de vache ''fox the first time" at Camp No. 10, near the 

 Ojo del Cuerbo, or Salt Lakes,' west of the Guadeloupe Mountains, and in the* 

 Valley of the Rio Grande. This is the only allusion to buffalo or bufialo 

 "sign" contained in the narrative, although the kinds and quantity of game 



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* Med. Statistics, U. S. Army, 1839 - 1854, p. 391. 



t Pacific R. R. Exploration and Surveys, Vol. Ill, Lieutenant Whipple's Report on the 35tb Parallel, 



Part I, pp. 26, 28, 29, 35. 



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