122 The Bison 



westward, it was found in numbers along the 

 southern shores of these lakes, and in the territory 

 now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wis- 

 consin. Audubon tells us that in the first years 

 of the nineteenth century there were buffalo in 

 Kentucky, but declares that about 1810, or soon 

 after, they all disappeared. This disappearance 

 was due chiefly to their actual destruction by 

 white men and by Indians, and not, as is com- 

 monly stated, to the retiring of the great herds 

 before the advance of settlement and civilization. 

 It seems that the last buffalo were killed east of 

 the Mississippi River about the year 1820, al- 

 though it may be that in Wisconsin and Minne- 

 sota they lasted somewhat longer. 



West of the Great Lakes, and turning sharply 

 northward so as to run nearly northwest, the east- 

 ern border of the buffalo's range west of the Mis- 

 sissippi was a line running very near the western 

 extremity of Lake Superior, up through the Lake 

 of the Woods, west of Lake Winnipeg, and thence 

 northward to and beyond the Great Slave Lake. 

 There this border line turned to the west, and 

 then sharply to the south, and meeting the Rocky 

 Mountains not far from where Peace River leaves 

 them, followed the range south, about to the 49th 



