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160 



THE AMEEICAIT BlSOISrS. 



to a horse or mule, are cut by innumerable hoofs into a series of narrow ter- 



raceSj each a buffalo trail. 



" In the whole region just north of the Milk Eiver, absolutely treeless ex- 

 cepting along a part of the stream, and on the Sweet Grass Hills, buffalo 

 chips are everywhere at hand for fuel. 



"In descending the Missouri Kiver from Fort Benton, buffalo were seen 



4 ■ ■ 



almost daily during that part of the voyage which embraced the rapid por- 

 tion of the river flowing between the bluffs of the Bad Lands. Small droves 

 were seen ^ surmounting peaks which, it would seem, only a mountain sheep 

 could scale; and in one instance, indeed, the attempt was a failure, and the 

 animal rolled down hill in a cloud of dust. No more were seen below the 

 mouth of the Musselshell, where the Missouri widens and enters a flatter 

 country. The limit on the Missouri corresponds in longitude, in a general 

 way, with that above noted on the parallel of 49°." 



It thus appears that twenty years ago buffaloes were accustomed to fre- 

 quent the whole region between the Missouri River and the 49th parallel, 

 from the western boundary of Dakota, or the 104th meridian, westward to 

 the Rocky Mountains, occurring even throughout the foot-hills of the latter 

 as well as over the head-waters of the Bitter Root, or St. Mary's River, one 

 of the sources of Clarke's Fork of the Columbia, but that they are now re- 

 stricted to the region between Frenchman's Creek, near the 107th meridian, 

 and the Rocky Mountains, over much of which area their occurrence is 

 merely irregular and more or less fortuitous, their main range being between 



the 110th and the 112th meridians. 



Jicffion hehveen the Upper Missouri and Platte Eivcrs. — It is so well known 

 that the buffalo formerly ranged throughout this region that there is little 



need of presenting further evidence of the flxct than will be given incident- 

 ally in tracing the boundaries of their present range, and in sketching the 

 history of their extirpation over the greater part of this extensive territory. 

 Beginning at the eastward, we find that Bradbury in 1810, in crossing from 

 e Platte River northward to the Mandan Villages, met with a few buffaloes 

 in what is now Eastern Nebraska, on the Elk Horn River, and that they 

 were then plentiful on the Canon Ball and Heart Rivers, in what is now 

 Southwestern Dakota.^ They lingered in Southwestern Dakota till within 

 a very short time. The last buffalo killed near Fort Rice was taken in 1869, 



* Bradbury (John), Travels in the Interior of Nortli America in the years 1809, 1810, and 1811, pp. 53, 

 134. 





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