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THE AMERICAN EISOXS. 



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parties near Pike's Peak in 1873, and that in 1875 there was a band of about 

 nineteen on the west side of Pike's Peak^ and another band of about sixty 

 near Mt. Lincoln in the South Park. Mr. C. E. Aiken, probably referring to 

 these, writes me that he knows of but two bands existing at the present 



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time (February, 1876) in the mountains about South Park, one of whi 

 "grazes on the mountains at the head of Tarryall Creek, and is frequently 

 foimd above timber-line; the other ranges in the rugged mountains south 



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of Pike's Peak, and numbers some thirty or forty individuals. 



In 1871 their bleached skulls were still frequent in the valley of the 

 North Platte, in Western Wyoming, as well as on the Laramie Plains, but I 

 was assured that only stragglers had been seen in all this region during the 

 previous ten or fifteen years. "^ Stansbury reports meeting with them in 

 abundance on Pass Creek and other head-waters of the North Platte in 



1849.t 



In respect to the extermination of the bufflxlo along the western edge of 



the plains in Colorado, and the present western boundary of the Souther 



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Herd, I have been favored with a valuable communication from Mr. Wil- 

 liam N. Byers, editor and proprietor of the " Rocky Mountain News." In 

 kindly answer to my inquiries he thus refers (writing under date of July 3, 

 1875) to the gradual extermination of the buffiilo along the eastern base of 

 the Eocky Mountains. He says: "Perhaps the best ideal can give you of 

 the shrinkage of the column on this side is gathered from the history of the 

 early trading-posts established here, mainly for barter in their hides. The 

 first trading-post in this [South Platte] valley was built in 1832, six miles 

 below Denver, and about fifteen miles, direct, from the mountain foot. A 

 trader employed here from 1832 to 1836 told me that he thought that he 

 never looked out over the walls of the fort without seeing buffalo, and some- 

 times they covered the plain. At that time their moving columns surged 

 up against the mountain foot. Five or six years later the next fort was 

 built five or six miles down the river, then a third a few miles below the 

 second, and, about 1840, a fourth, nearly twenty miles below the third, or 

 forty odd miles from the mountains. There the trade was concentrated and 

 the up-river forts were successively abandoned, owing to the decrease of the 

 bufialo in their vicinity. But great herds of buifaloes occasionally ranged 

 over the present site of Denver as late as 1846. 



* See Bulletin Essex Institute, Vol YI, p. 59. 

 f Salt Lake Expedition, pp. 243 - 247. 



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