508 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 188?. 



for me to give you any just idea of the number shipped. The only fig- 

 ures obtainable, are those of 1881, when over seventy-five thousand 

 dry and un tanned buffalo hides came down the river for shipment from 

 Bismarck. Some robes were also shipped from this point that year, 

 and a considerable number of robes and hides were shipped from 

 several other shipping points. 



"The number of pounds of buffalo meat shipped over our line has 

 never cut any figure, the bulk of the meat having been left on the 

 prairie, as not being of sufficient value to pay the cost of transportation. 



"The names of the extreme eastern and western stations from which 

 shipments were made are as follows : In 1880, Bismarck was the only 

 shipping point. In 18rL, Glendive, Bismarck, and Beaver Creek. In 

 1882, Terry and Sully Springs, Montana, were the chief shipping points, 

 and in the order named, so far as numbers and amount of shipments are 

 concerned. Bismarck on the east and Forsyth on the west were the 

 two extremities. 



"Up to the year 1880, so long as buffalo were killed only for robes, 

 the bands did not decrease very materially; but beginning with that 

 year, when they were killed for their hides as well, a most indiscrimi- 

 nate slaughter commenced, and from that time on they disappeared 

 very rapidly. Up to the year 1881 there were two large bands, one 

 south of the Yellowstone and the other north of that river. In the year 

 mentioned those south of the river were driven north and never re- 

 turned, having joined the northern band, and become practically ex- 

 tinguished. 



"Since 1882 there have, of course, been occasional shipments both of 

 hides and robes, but in such small quantities and so seldom that they 

 cut practically no figure, the bulk of them coming probably from north 

 Missouri points down the river to Bismarck." 



In 1880 the northern buffalo range embraced the following streams : 

 The Missouri and all its tributaries, from Fort Shaw, Montana, to Fort 

 Bennett, Dakota, and the Yellowstone and all its tributaries. Of this 

 region, Miles City, Montana, was the geographical center. The grass 

 was good over the whole of it, and the various divisions of the great 

 herd were continually shifting from one locality to another, often making 

 journeys several hundred miles at a time. Over the whole of this vast 

 area their bleaching bones lie scattered (where they have not as yet 

 been gathered up for sale) from the Upper Marias and Milk Bivers, near 

 the British boundary, to the Platte, and from the James River, in cen- 

 tral Dakota, to an elevation of 8,000 feet in the Bocky Mountains. In- 

 deed, as late as October, 1887, I gathered up on the open common, 

 within half a mile of the Northern Pacific Railway depot at the city of 

 Helena, the skull, horns, and numerous odd bones of a large bull buf- 

 falo which had been killed there. 



Over many portions of the northern range the traveler may even 

 now ride for days together without once being out of sight of buffalo 



