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228 



THE AMERICAN BISOJ^S. 



On one of his accompanying maps 



this region is marked as "Terres 



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Hautes/' while the low country, or '^ drowned lands," of the present Lower 

 Louisiana is marked " Terres Plates." Hence, when in his later description 

 of the buffalo he speaks of the Indians leaving "Lower Louisiana" to hunt 

 the buffalo, he simply means that they leave the low flat country immediately 

 bordering the coast and the river, especially the low country south and west 

 of Baton Rouge, to hunt in the higher lands of the present State of Mis- 

 sissippi, where, if we take Du Pratz as trustworthy authority, the buffalo 

 must, at that time (about 1720 and later), have been abundant Yet when 

 this very region w^as crossed by De Soto, tw^o hundred years earlier, the 



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buffalo was evidently not to be foxmd there. It hence appears to have 

 spread in the mean time from the region more to the nortlnvard. West of 

 the Mississippi, also, the buffalo, in Du Pratz's time, extended southward over 

 regions where it was not met wuth by De Soto or by La Salle, Avhich aflbrds 

 further evidence that the buffalo extended its range considerably to the 

 southward and eastward in the valley of the Lower Mississippi between 

 1540 and 1720, or even between 1685 and the latter date, as seems to have 



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been also the case in South Carolina and Georgia. 



It hence appears evident that at one time the buffalo occupied probably 

 most of 



e region between the Tennessee and Mississippi Eivers. On 



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Du Pratz's map, however, the course of the Tennessee is very incorrectly 

 laid down, as it is also on the earlier map of De ITsle, and on maps j^ub- 

 lished much later even than Du Pratz's, its southern bend on Du Pratz's 

 map not reaching the 36th parallel, while it actually crosses the 3od. He 

 seems not to have hiuiself passed above the Chickasaw Bluffs, and his 

 knowledge of the country beyond on the east side of the river was evidently 



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very vague 



The presence of "Boeufs" in the country drained by the Mobile River is 



Of^' 



Tonti's "Relation"^ (the authorship of which work, however, Tonti disowns). 



The presence of a creek in Southwestern Mississippi still bearing the name 



of "Buflflxlo Creek" may be considered as further evidence of the former 



existence of the buffalo in this region. 



It is to be regretted that Adair, who spent many years (1735 to 1767) as 

 a trader and government official among the. tribes south of the Tennessee 

 River, has left so little on record respecting the range of the buffalo at that 



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* Relation de la Louisiannc, 1720, Vol. T, p. 11. 



