L56 THE AMERICAN BISOm 



from camp, we ascended to the top of a high hill, and for a great distance 

 ahead every square mile seemed to have a berd of buffalo upon it. Their 

 number was variously estimated by the members of the party, some as high 

 as half a million. 1 do not think it is any exaggeration to set it down at 

 200,000. 1 had heard of the myriads oi' these animals inhabiting these 

 plains, hut I could not realize the truth of these accounts till to-day, when 

 they surpass everything I could have imagined from the accounts which I 

 had received."* 



According to Assistant Surgeon Asa Wall, buffaloes were still common 

 about Fort Abercrombie, on the Red River, as late as I858.t 



Mr. W. II. Illingworth, the well-known photographer of St. Paul, informs 

 me that in 18GG, when he made a journey from St. Cloud westward to the 

 Yellowstone, he met with immense herds for two days in passing the Coteau 

 des Prairies, west of the dames River. They seem to have wholly dis- 

 appeared east of the .Missouri soon after this date, surviving in Southern 

 Dakota, however, between the .lames and Missouri Rivers, for some years 

 after their extermination over the plains of the Red River. As already 

 Stated, they were exterminated east of the lied Riveras early as about the 

 year 1850, t and, being at that time rapidly pressed westward by the Red 

 River hunters, were wholly exterminated during the few years next follow- 

 ing throughout the whole basin of the Red River, and even throughout the 

 whole of the northern half of Dakota. In Southern Dakota, between the 

 James and the Missouri, they lingered for some years later. Imt wholly dis- 

 appeared east of the Missouri prior to the year 1870. 



Region between th< Upper Missouri and I'.'/// Parallel — The fonner existence 

 of the buffalo over the whole of the region drained by the Upper Missouri 

 i- well substantiated by the evidences they themselves have left, and which 

 exisl in the form of well-defined trails and osseous remains. When Lewis and 

 Clarke ascended the Missouri in 1 so i. they me I with them at frequent points 

 along almost it- w Imle course, from the mouth of the Big Sioux to the Forks, § 

 and subsequent explorers found them on its remotest source-. As late as 

 1856 this whole region was occupied, at leasl temporarily, by roving 

 bands. Lambert, in his general report respecting the topography of this 



• Pfc Hi, I: l: Rep, ,,t Expl, bid Borvcya, Vol. XI, pt l. p 

 | tied. 8( .ti-ti. iU. 8 Army, I 

 ibove, |> 1 1 1. 



l.-l» ,iii , eta , Vol. I, pp. I 



