GREAT HERDS ON THE PLAINS 9 



northern plains of Mexico, the " Great American Desert," 

 the Rocky Mountain parks on the continental divide to an 

 elevation of 11,000 feet and the bleak and barren plains of 

 western Canada, up to the land of the musk-ox. From north 

 to south it ranged 3,600 miles, and from east to west about 

 2,000 miles. 



The centre of abundance of the Buffalo was the Great 

 Plains lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi 

 Valley. When the herds assembled there, they covered the 

 earth seemingly as with one vast, brown buffalo-robe. 



It is safe to say that no man ever saw in one day a greater 

 panorama of animal life than that unrolled before Colonel 

 R. I. Dodge, in May, 1871, when he drove for twenty -five 

 miles along the Arkansas River, through an unbroken herd 

 of Buffaloes. By my calculation he actually saw on that 

 memorable day nearly half a million head. It was the great 

 southern herd, on its annual spring migration northward, and 

 it must have contained a total of about three and one-half 

 million animals. At that date the northern herd contained 

 about one and one-half millions. In those days mighty hosts, 

 of Buffaloes frequently stopped or derailed railway trains, 

 and obstructed the progress of boats on the Missouri and Yel- 

 lowstone Rivers. 



In 1869 the general herd was divided, by the completion 

 of the Union Pacific Railway, into a "northern herd" and 

 "southern herd." The latter was savagely attacked by hide 

 hunters in the autumn of 1871, and by 1875, with the exception 

 of three very small bunches, it had been annihilated. 



In 1880 the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway led 



