74 



It existed in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky as late, or even 

 later, than on the prairies adjoining the Mississippi. The animal sur- 

 vived at most points only a few years after the first permanent settle- 

 ments were made. Its history east of the Mississippi is not different 

 from its history in the two small areas to which it is now confined — " a 

 shameful record of wasteful and wanton destruction of life, like that 

 which ever marks the contact of man with the larger mammals." 



Mr. Thomas Ashe, in his "Travels in America," performed in 1806, 

 speaks of the great abundance and wanton destruction of Buffalo in the 

 vicinity of Oil Creek and Clarion Creek, Pennsylvania. An old man 

 informed Mr. Ashe that he and his companion killed several hundred 

 near a salt spring for the sake of their skins, worth but two shillings 

 each. The stench was so great they were compelled to leave the place 

 until the carcasses were devoured or abandoned by wild beasts and birds. 



"The simple history of this spring," says Mr. Ashe, "is that of every 

 other in the settled parts of this Western World ; the carnage of beasts 

 was eyerywhere the same. I met with a man who had killed two thous- 

 and Buffaloes with his own hand, and others, no doubt, have done the 

 same. In consequence of such proceedings not one Buffalo is at this 

 time (in 1806) to be found east of the Mississippi, except a few domesti- 

 cated by the curious, or carried through the country as a public show." 



This last statement refers, doubtless, to the Mississippi below latitude 

 40° ; the Buffalo did not retire to the northward of the Illinois River, 

 according to Breckenridge, until in 1814, and Sibley states, in School- 

 craft's Indians, that two individuals were killed in 1832 by the Sioux 

 Indians on the Trempeleau River, in Upper Wisconsin, and adds: 

 " They are believed to be the last specimens of the noble Bison which 

 trod, or will ever again tread, the soil of the region lying east of the 

 Mississippi River." 



Inasmuch as all the larger species of mammalia are everywhere disap- 

 pearing as civilization progresses, and as large areas are brought under 

 cultivation the faunal and floral character of a country are essentially 

 modified, it seems essential to preserve in the State reports and archives 

 as full and accurate reports as can be obtained of the earlier conditions 

 and distribution of animal life in each great faunal area, so that com- 

 parisons with present conditions and limitations may be instituted, and 

 the history of the successive changes noted. 



With this object in view, I have quoted freely from Mr. J. A. Allen's 

 history of the American Bison, and shall introduce here Prof. N. S. 

 Shaler's observations on the age of the Bison iir the Ohio Valley, which 

 constitute Appendix II. of Mr. Allen's history : 



