42 VIEWS OF NATURE. 



lived, as late as the sixteenth century, an Indian tribe in the 

 north-west of Mexico, in 40 north lat., whose greatest 

 wealth consisted in hordes of tamed buffaloes (bueyes con una 

 ffiba). Yet, notwithstanding the possibility of taming the 

 buffalo, and the abundance of milk it yields, and notwith- 

 standing the herds of Lamas in the Peruvian Cordilleras, no 

 pastoral tribes were met with on the discovery of America. 

 Nor does history afford any evidence of the existence, at 

 any period, of this intermediate stage of national development. 

 It is also a remarkable fact that the North American bison 

 or buffalo has exerted an influence on geographical dis- 

 coveries in pathless mountain districts. These animals ad- 

 vance in herds of many thousands in search of a milder 

 climate, during winter, in the countries south of the Arkansas 

 river. Their size and cumbrous forms render it difficult for 

 them to cross high mountains on these migratory courses, and 

 a well-trodden buffalo-path is therefore followed wherever it 

 is met with, as it invariably indicates the most convenient 

 passage across the mountains. Thus buffalo-paths have indi- 

 cated the best tracks for passing over the Cumberland Moun- 

 tains in the south-western parts of Virginia and Kentucky, and 

 over the Rocky Mountains, between the sources of the Yellow- 

 stone and Plate rivers, and between the southern branch of 

 the Columbia and the Californian Rio Colorado. European 

 settlements have gradually driven the buffalo from the eastern 

 portions of the United States. Formerly these migratory 

 animals passed the banks of the Mississippi and the Ohio, 

 advancing far beyond Pittsburgh.* 



From the granitic rocks of Diego Ramirez and the deeply- 

 intersected district of Terra del Fuego (which in the east 

 contains silurian schist, and in the west, the same schist 

 metamorphosed into granite by the action of subterranean 

 fire,)f to the North Polar Sea, the Cordilleras extend over 

 a distance of more than 8000 miles. Although not the 

 loftiest, they are the longest mountain chain in the world, 

 being upheaved from one fissure, which runs in the direction 

 of a meridian from pole to pole, and exceeding in linear 



* Archceologia Americana, vol. ii., 1836, p. 139. 



t Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural 

 History of the Countries visited 18321836 ly the Ships Adventure 

 and Beagle, p. 266. 



