1 16 THE AMERICAS BISONS. 



ant J. W. Alien found them as far east as 97 32f* lieutenant Abert 

 reports meeting with them the following year near the 98th meridian, just 

 wesl ill' which he found them in immense herds.f 



Lewis and Clarke, in ascending the Missouri River in 1804, first met with 

 buffaloes at the mouth of the Kansas River, but state that they did not 

 become common till they reached the Sioux Paver. J Bradbury found them 

 in 1810 at Floyd's Bluff. Audubon Bays that when he and his party went 

 up the Missouri River in 1843, "the first buffalo were heard of near Fort 

 Leavenworth, some having a short time before been killed within forty miles 

 of that place. We did not, however," he says, "see any of these animals 

 until we had passed Fort Croghan, hut above this point we met with them 

 almost daily, either floating dead on the river or gazing at our steamboat 

 from the shore." ^ 



As early as 1834, Murray, in his journey westward from Fort Leaven- 

 worth into the Indian country, first met with buffaloes on the Republi- 

 can, showing that they had already become extinct or of uncertain occur- 

 rence in Eastern Kansas. Fremont, in 1842. in marching northwestward 

 from Fort Leavenworth to the Platte River, by way of the Kansas River, 

 came suddenly upon great herds just above Grand Isle, in about longitude 

 i. (>!• near the present site of Fort Kearney. The following year 

 I L843), in crossing the plains considerably to the southward of his route of 

 the previous year, he fust met with the buffalo on the divide between the 



Solomon and the Republican Forks, also near the 99th meridian.* Emory, 

 iii 1> h;. says that the range of the buffalo along the Arkansas was " west- 

 ward, between the ninety-eighth and the one hundred and first meridians of 

 longitude."** In 1849 Stansbury saw no buffaloes east of the Forks of the 

 Platte, but found them in abundance to the westward of this point Captain 

 Stansbury's guide reported to him that not many years before the plains 

 somewhat to the east of Fort Kearney were hlack with berds of buffaloes " as 

 far as the e\ e could reach." tt 



I; p . ■ 'ili Congr., 1st S n I D No. 8, p. ■-'! 7. 

 t Notes of a Military Reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth, M". t" San Diego, Cat. Congress. Rep, 

 '.... 7. p. 11. 



pi dition t" the Rocky Mi tains, Vol. I, pp. 19, 67, 



ili \ in. ii. I. Vol. II. p. 60. 

 || Travel* in Ni.nl ,|. I, pp. 208, 



I during 1848, '43, and '44, pp 



W. H.), Notes of a Mllitai Recu fort Lcavi nwortli to San Dii I 



p 16. 

 tt Si u I dition to th Gr. al Ball I. A. . pp 



