THE AMERICAN BISONS. 165 



storm. Contrary to all precedent, there was no wind, and the snow covered 

 the surface evenly to the depth of nearly four feet. Immediately after the 

 storm a bright sun softened the surface, which at night froze into a crust so 

 firm that it was weeks before any heavy animal could make any headway over 

 it. The Laramie Plains, being entirely surrounded by mountains, had always 

 been a favorite wintering-place for the buffaloes. Thousands were caught in 

 this storm, and perished miserably by starvation. Since that time not a 

 single buffalo has ever visited the Laramie Plains. When I first crossed 

 these plains, in 18G8, the whole country was dotted with skulls of buffaloes, 

 all in the last stages of decomposition and all apparently of the same age [or 

 period of exposure], giving some foundation for the tradition. Indeed, it 

 was in answer to my request for an explanation of the numbers, appearance, 

 and identity of age [condition] of these skulls, that the tradition was related 

 to me by an old hunter, who, however, could not himself vouch for the 

 facts." * 



That this may have been the case seems very probable from the fact 

 that I found, in returning over these plains in December, 1871, the snow so 

 deep and so heavily encrusted that the herds of domestic stock were d3ing 

 from starvation whenever it happened that their owners had not provided 

 for such an emergency by laying in a good supply of hay. Many animals 

 perished from lack of food and shelter, the occurrence of such conditions as a 

 deep snow heavily encrusted being wholly unlooked for ; and had buffaloes 

 been then living on these plains they could hardly have survived the long 

 period during which the ground was inaccessible to grazing animals. 



The buffalo has also become exterminated over a large portion of the 

 country to the northward of the Sweet Water along the eastern base of the 

 Rocky Mountains, extending northward, in fact, over the head-waters of the 

 Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. Dr. Hayden informs me that but few 

 were found in 1871 and 1872 on the Upper Yellowstone, and that they are 

 now rarely seen above Shields River, although they occurred in the Wind 

 River Valley in 1860. He says, moreover, that very few are found on the 

 Three Forks of the Missouri, where they have been nearly all destroyed or 

 driven out by the miners. Those that remain are chiefly old bulls, the scat- 



* Chicago Inter-Orcan, August 5, 1875. This and the previous extracts from the Inter-Ocean news- 

 paper were sent to this paper by a reporter accompanying the Black Hills Expedition of 1875, of which 

 Colonel Dodge was in command, as a portion of an "advance chapter" from a forthcoming hook on 

 the West by Colonel Dodge. This book, " based on personal experience, ' lias been announced as about 

 to appear, with maps and illustrations, under the title of ; ' The Black Hills." 



