THE AMERICAN BISONS. 87 



important statements, Mr. Pritchett refers to a number of the descendants 

 of the first settlers of the region in question as being ready to vouch for his 

 statements. The localities he mentions are all well up in the mountains, 

 beyond the Blue Ridge, Pocahontas County being wholly west of the divide, 

 on the Greenbrier River. Bath County adjoins it on the east, and embraces 

 the extreme upper tributaries of the James. These counties are the ones 

 referred to by Mr. Pritchett as those where the evidence of the former 

 presence of the buffalo is still " abundant." Amherst County is some dis- 

 tance lower down the James, and if the name "Buffalo Springs" in that county 

 is to be considered as satisfactory evidence of the former existence there of 

 the buffalo, these animals must have at times wandered to some distance down 

 the James, as far at least as the Blue Ridge. 



The only reasons for supposing that buffaloes at times crossed through 

 the low valleys of the Alleghanies in Central Pennsylvania to the Atlantic 

 slope are Professor Baird's report of the occurrence of its bones in the 

 superficial deposits and caves of that State,* and the traditional evidence 

 afforded by the occurrence of such names as " Buffalo Creek " and " Buffalo 

 Valley " in Union County, near Lewisburg. The last-mentioned locality, 

 though of course on the Atlantic slope, is west of the Blue Ridge, which 

 here forms the principal chain of the Alleghany Mountains. 



The foregoing historical evidence is sufficient apparently to show the im- 

 probability of the occurrence of the buffalo, at the time of the first explora- 

 tion of the country by Europeans, either north of the great lakes or over 

 that part of the Atlantic slope adjacent to the sea-coast north of North Caro- 

 lina ; in other words, within the present limits of Canada, New England, or 

 the maritime part of the eastern slope of the Appalachian Highlands, north- 

 ward of the present southern boundary of Virginia. On the contrary, it 

 seems to me that the evidence of its absence at that time over these regions 

 is almost conclusive, for had it occurred there, there is every reason to be- 

 lieve that proof of the fact would not be wanting in the early records of the 

 country, in which its products, and especially its larger animals, are so often 

 minutely enumerated. We have also seen that the use of such terms as 

 buffes, bufflcs, wild bulls, ivild cows, toild cattle, and vaches sauvagcs, not only do not 

 necessarily imply the presence of buffaloes, but, on the contrary, have been 

 repeatedly employed as the designation of both the moose and the elk. If we 



* The locality, though not stated, is probably Cumberland County. 



