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156 



THE america:^^ eisoxs. 



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from camp, we ascended to the top of a higli hill; and for a great distance 

 ahead every square mile seemed to have a herd of buifalo upon it. Their 

 number was variously estimated by the members of the party, some as high 

 as half a million. I do not tliink it is any exaggeration to set it down at 

 200,000. I had heard of the myriads of these animals inhabiting these 

 plains, but I could not realize the truth of these accounts till to-day, when 

 they surpass everything I could have imagined from the accounts which I 

 had received."^ 



According to Assistant Surgeon Asa Wall, buffaloes were still common 

 about Fort Abercrombie, on the Ecd River, as late as 1858.t 



Mr. W. H. Illingworth, the well-known photographer of St. Paul, informs 

 me that in 1866, when he made a journey from St. Cloud westward to the 

 Yellowstone, he met with immense herds for two days in passing the Coteau 

 des Prairies, west of the James Eiver. They seem to have wholly dis- 

 appeared east of the Missouri soon after this date, surviving in Southern 

 Dakota, however, between the James and Missouri Elvers, for some years 

 after their extermination over the plains of the Eed Eiver. As already 

 stated, they were exterminated east of the Eed Eiver as early as about the 

 year 1850, t and, being at that time rapidly pressed westward by the Eed 

 Eiver hunters, were wholly exterminated during the few years next follow- 

 ing throughout the whole basin of the Eed Eiver, and even throughout the 

 whole of the northern half of Dakota. In Southern Dakota, between the 



* 



James and the Missouri, they lingered for some years later, but wholly dis- 

 appeared east of the Missouri prior to the year 1870. 



Missouri 



The former existence 



of the buffalo over the whole of the region, drained by the Upper Missouri 

 is well substantiated by the evidences they themselves have left, and which 

 exist in the form of well-defined trails and osseous remains. When Lewis and 

 Clarke ascended the Missouri in 1804, they met with them at frequent points 

 along almost its whole course, from the mouth of the Big Sioux to the Forks, § 

 and subsequent explorers found them on its remotest sources. As late as 

 1856 this whole region was occupied, at least temporarily, by roving 

 bands. Lambert, in his general report respecting the topography of this 



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* Pacific K. K. Eep. of Expl. and STirveys, A'^ol. XI, pt. 1, p. 59 



t Med. Statistics U. S. Anny, 1855-1860, p. 34. 



t See above, p. 144. 



§ Expedition, etc.. Vol. I, pp. G7, 75, 77, et seq. 



V 





