THE AMERICAN BISONS. 125 



meat and furs. "This," he says, "has been a great hunting-season with all 

 the Indians, both east and west of the mountains. Hundreds of thousands 

 of buffalo have been slain, and small game — consisting of antelope, deer, 

 beaver, etc. — has been innumerable."* 



It thus appears that the buffalo formerly existed west of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, nearly to the northern boundary of the United States, and that they 

 had become completely exterminated there as early, according to Fremont 

 (as above cited), as 1840, although they swarmed there in immense herds as 

 late as 1835. The valleys of the streams in that region are represented as 

 abounding in fertile prairies, and as being generally covered with perennial 

 grasses. As the adjoining country westward is barren and wholly unproduc- 

 tive of grass, it is probable that the buffalo ranged further westward only 

 irregularly, and in straggling bands. Bonneville, at least, failed to meet 

 with any between the sources of Snake River and Fort Walla-Walla in 1834 

 and 1835, and no other explorer seems to have met with them living so far 

 west. Dr. Hayden informs me that a few still exist in the valley of the Gros 

 Ventres, and in the extreme upper part of the Snake River, — merely 

 straggling old bulls, the last survivors of former populous herds. Professor 

 0. C. Marsh writes me that the last one shot on Henry's Fork was killed in 

 1844. Professor J. Marcou informs me that a single old buffalo bull made 

 his appearance at Fort Bridger last summer (1875), but that none had been 

 seen there before, according to Dr. Carter, for thirty years. This solitary 

 straggler was probably a wanderer from the remnants of his race still left in 

 the valleys of the Wind River Mountains. 



Range westward south of the Thirty-ninth Parallel. — According to Lieutenant 

 Whipple, "there do not seem to be any well-authenticated accounts of the 

 existence of the buffalo west of the Rio Grande." He adds : " On inquiring 

 how far west the buffalo had been seen, a Tegua Indian stated that many 

 years ago his father killed two at Santo Domingo. A Mexican from San 

 Juan de Caballeros added that in 1835 he saw buffalo on the Rio del Norte." 

 Lieutenant Whipple further says that " Father Escalante, in a manuscript jour- 

 nal of a trip from New Mexico to the Great Salt Lake,t in 1776, mentioned 

 having seen signs of their existence on his route ;% still, notwithstanding the 



* Mullan (Lieutenant John), Report of a Reconnaissance from Bitter Root Valley to Fort Hall, etc., 

 Pacific R. R. Explorations and Surveys, Vol. I, Governor Stevens's Report, p. 325. 



f Utah Lake, according to General G. K. Warren (see the next footnote). 



X According to General G. K.Warren (Pacific R. R. Expl. and Surveys, Vol. XI, -p. 35), "Father 

 Escalante, in 17 76, travelled from near Santa Fe, New Mexico, iu a northwesterly direction to the Great 



