MAMMALS OF MINNESOTA. 269 



their game. The number of hides shipped during a period of 

 three months, beginning with this date, is reported to have 

 been 43,029, and the shipment of meat 1,436,290 Ibs.," the num- 

 ber killed around Fort Dodge during four months being esti- 

 mated at over 100,000. During 1871 hides and meat represent- 

 ing over 20,000 individuals were shipped over the Kansas 

 Pacific railway. In 1876 but few remained scattered about 

 their former range in that region but since then these too 

 have, it would seem, been entirely exterminated. Thous- 

 ands were killed for sport and many more for no adequate 

 return perhaps the tongue or a dainty morsel. 



Allen estimates the total destruction between 1870 and 1875 

 as not less than two and one half millions annually. This ex- 

 plains the nearly complete extermination except in the almost 

 inaccessible regions to the far north. The flesh of the buffalo 

 when young is tender and juicy but only the tongue and flesh 

 of the hump are regarded as delicacies. Buffalo beef furnished 

 the material for the manufacture of pemmican for the fur 

 countries. It was thought by the early explorers that the 

 woolly hair of the buffalo would become an article of commerce. 

 The Indians spun and wove it into a variety of articles and 

 ornaments but it has never been utilized by the whites. The 

 bones and even the excrement are of value, the latter especi- 

 ally, the so-called "buffalo-chips"' have aided materially in set- 

 tling the treeless regions. Without this substitute for wood it 

 would have been impossible to secure fuel for many a weary mile. 



An exhaustive study of the former range of the buffalo has 

 been made by Allen. They were common in Minnesota up to a 

 comparatively recent time. In 1823 Major Long encountered 

 thousands about Big Stone and Traverse. In 1844 Captain 

 Allen encountered herds in southwestern Minnesota. ' 'Seventy- 

 five miles west of the source of the Des Moines we struck the 

 range of buffalo, and continued in it to the Big Sioux river and 

 down the river about eighty- six miles." In 1850, according to 

 Pope, buffaloes were abundant between the Pembina and the 

 Cheyenne rivers. Stragglers seem to have visited the south- 

 western part of the state as late as 1869. They were driven 

 out of the region east of the Mississippi before 1835 though 

 found within fifty miles of St. Paul somewhat later. 



The location of a midland route to the Pacific coast cut the 

 range of the buffalo in two and the completion of the Union 

 Pacific railroad made the separation permanent. The rapid 

 extermination of the buffalo to the south of this line followed. 



