THE AMERICAN BISON. 37 



English farms. He informs us, that a farmer on the 

 great Kenhawa broke a young Bison to the plough ; and 

 having yoked it with a steer, taken from his tame cattle, 

 it performed its work to admiration. But there is 

 another property in which the Bison far surpasses the Ox, 

 and this is his strength. " Judging from the extraordinary 

 size of his bones, and the depth and formation of the 

 chest, (continues this gentleman,) I should not think it 

 unreasonable to assign nearly a double portion of strength 

 to this powerful inhabitant of the forest. Reclaim him, 

 and you gain a capital quadruped, both for the draught 

 and for the plough ; his activity peculiarly fits him for 

 the latter, in preference to the ox." 



As there are no Game Laws in America, (except in a 

 very few confined instances on the Atlantic border,) the 

 consequence is that the Bison is fast disappearing before 

 the approach of the white settlers. At the commence- 

 ment of the eighteenth century these wild cattle were 

 found in large numbers all throughout the valley of the 

 Ohio, of the Mississippi, in Western New York, in 

 Virginia, &c. In the beginning of the present century 

 they were still existing in the extreme western or south- 

 western part of the State of New York. As late as 

 1812 they were natives of Ohio, and numerous in that 

 State. And now they are not to be seen in their native 

 state in any part of the United States, east of the 

 Mississippi River ; nor are they now to be found in 

 any considerable numbers west of that great river, until 

 you have travelled some eighty or a hundred miles into 

 the interior of the country. 



There were no Bisons west of the Rocky Mountains, 

 when Lewis and Clarke travelled there in 1805. On 



