ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 53 



proximity and relative positions of the sources of rivers 

 which send their waters respectively to the Black Sea and to 

 the Baltic. Twenty small lakes,, forming narrow groups to 

 the south and west of Lake Istaca, have received from M. 

 Nicollet the names of distinguished European astronomers, 

 adversaries as well as friends. The map thus becomes a 

 kind of geographical album, reminding one of the botanical 

 album of Ruiz and Pavon's Mora Peruviana, in which the 

 names of new genera of plants were adapted to the Court 

 Calendar, and to the various changes taking place in the 

 Oficiales de la Secretaria. 



To the east of the Mississipi dense forests still partially 

 prevail ; but to the west of the river there are only Prairies, 

 in which the buffalo (Bos americanus), and the musk ox 

 (Bos moschatus), feed in large herds. Both these animals, 

 (the largest of the New World) serve the wandering 

 Indians, the Apaches Llaneros and the Apaches Lipanos, for 

 food. The Assiniboins sometimes kill in a few days from 

 seven to eight hundred bisons in what are called " bison 

 parks/' artificial enclosures into which the wild herds are 

 driven. (Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, Reise in das innere 

 Nord-America, Bd. i. 1839, S. 443.) The American bison, 

 or buffalo, called by the Mexicans Cibolo, which is frequently 

 killed merely for the sake of the tongue a much-prized dainty, 

 is by no means a mere variety of the Aurochs of the Old 

 Continent; although some other kinds of animals, as the 

 elk (Cervus alces) and the reindeer (Cervus tarandus), and 

 even, in the human race, the short-statured polar man, are 

 common to the northern parts of both continents, evidencing 



