118 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



in Eastern Kentucky to quite as late, or even to a later period, than on 

 the prairies adjoining the Mississippi. The extension of settlements down 

 the Mississippi River would tend to hem the buffalo in on that quarter, 

 and, as will be shown later, it disappeared at nearly the same time over a 

 considerable breadth of country bordering the western shore of this river. 

 Schoolcraft says that the buffalo " was found in early days to have 

 crossed the Mississippi above the latitude of the mouth of the Ohio, and 

 at certain times to have thronged the present area of Kentucky," etc.; 

 from which it may be inferred that he deemed its presence east of the 

 Mississippi River to have been of comparatively brief continuance. Gal- 

 latin also always speaks of it as having "spread from the westward" over 

 the region east of the Mississippi. Professor Shaler has referred to the prob- 

 ability of its having been unknown to the mound-builders * since they have 

 left nothing indicating that they were acquainted with it. which is not the 

 case with most of the other large mammals of the interior of the continent. t 

 He also states that in his exploration of the salt licks of Kentucky he had 

 found its bones in great abundance K jus1 below the recent mould, in a bed 

 about eighteen inches thick"; but that "in the rich deposits of extinct mam- 

 mals just beneath, immediately above which traces of worked Hint were also 

 found, no buffalo bones were discovered."* 



Tm: formes Range of the Buffalo wkst of the Rocky Mountains. 



The vast region situated between the Mississippi River and the Rocky 

 Mountains, excepting the lowlands bordering the Lower Mississippi, is well 

 known to have been formerly embraced within the range of the buffalo. So 

 well established is this fact that a special consideration of this region will be 

 deferred till the former boundaries of it- range to the westward and south- 

 ward have been traced. 



Although the main chain of the Rocky Mountains has commonly been 

 supposed to form the western limit of the range of the buffalo, there i- 

 abundant proof of its former existence over a \.i-t area west of this siq>- 

 posed boundary, including :i large part of the Bo-called Great Basin of I tali, 

 the lire. mi River Plateau, and the Plains of the Columbia. It is probably 

 not yet half a century since it ranged westward t<> the Blue Mountain- of 

 11 on and the Sierra Nevada Mountain- of California. 



• Proc Boil S... \ ■■ II | \ Mil. p 186. 



•hi- point in the Appendix. 



