THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 503 



thousand. A great number of hides taken in the British Possessions 

 fell into the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company, and found a market 

 in Canada. 



In May, 1881, the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal contained the following 

 information in regard to the buffalo robe "crop" of the previous hunt- 

 ing season — the winter of 1880-'81 : 



"It is estimated by competent authorities that one hundred thousand 

 buffalo hides will be shipped out of the Yellowstone country this season. 

 Two firms alone are negotiating for the transportation of twenty-five 

 thousand hides each. * * * Most of our citizens saw the big load 

 of buffalo hides that the G. K. Peck brought down last season, a load 

 that hid everything about the boat below the roof of the hurricane 

 deck. There were ten thousand hides in that load, and they were all 

 brought out of the Yellowstone on one trip and transferred to the G. 

 Jv. Peck. How such a load could have been piled on the little Terry 

 not even the men on the boat appear to know. It hid every part of 

 the boat, barring only the, pilot-house and smoke-stacks. But such a 

 load will not be attempted again. For such boats as ply the Yellow- 

 stone there are at least fifteen full loads of buffalo hides and other 

 pelts. Reckoning one thousand hides to three car loads, and adding 

 to this fifty cars for the other pelts, it will take at least three hundred and 

 fifty box-cars to carry this stupendous bulk of peltry East to market. 

 I hese figures are not guesses, but estimates made by men whose busi- 

 ness it is to know about the amount of hides and furs awaiting ship- 

 ment. 



"Nothing like it has ever been known in the history of the fur trade. 

 Last season the output of buffalo hides was above the average, and 

 last year only about thirty thousand hides came out of the Yellowstone 

 country, or less than a third of what is there now awaiting shipment. 

 The past severe winter caused the buffalo to bunch themselves in a few 

 valleys where there was pasturage, and there the slaughter went on all 

 winter. There was no sport about it, simply shooting down the famine- 

 tamed animals as cattle might be shot down in a barn-yard. To the 

 credit of the Indians it can be said that they killed no more than they 

 could save the meat from. The greater part of the slaughter was done 

 by white hunters, or butchers rather, who followed the business of 

 killing and skinning buffalo by the month, leaving the carcasses to rot." 



At the time of the great division made by the Union Pacific Railway 

 the northern body of buffalo extended from the valley of the Platte 

 River northward to the southern shore of Great Slave Lake, east- 

 ward almost to Minnesota, and westward to an elevation of 8,000 feet 

 in the Rocky Mountains. The herds were most numerous along the 

 central portion of this region (see map), and from the Platte Valley to 

 Great Slave Lake the range was continuous. The buffalo population of 

 the southern half of this great range was, according to all accounts, 

 nearly three times as great as that of the northern half. At that time, 



