388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



or buffalo had extended its range eastward into the region about the 

 headstreams of the Ohio and Tennessee and there is evidence that an 

 occasional straggler had even reached the upper valleys of streams 

 flowing into the Atlantic. Eemains of the animal found in caves and 

 deposits in several localities testify to this eastward extension of its 

 range in pre-Columbian times. The word "buffalo/' occurring as it 

 does in certain place-names of an early date throughout the middle 

 Atlantic region, offers further evidence as to the one time presence 

 of the animal in these localities, and there is at least one well-au- 

 thenticated notice of its having been killed in central Pennsylvania 

 as late as 1790. 5 



Of the smaller animals many, like the beaver and the otter, have 

 disappeared, though the latter animal is still rarely seen here and there 

 on remote streams, even in the settled districts. The beaver formerly 

 built its dams and lodges in many of the streams throughout the 

 forest region and traces of its occupancy may still be found in certain 

 woodland meadows as well as in various place-names. Other species 

 seem to have suffered little if any diminution, as the fox, skunk, 

 mink, woodchuck, musk-rat, the raccoon and opossum, while rabbits 

 and squirrels multiply apace. These have all in part adjusted them- 

 selves to the new conditions, many of them thriving at the expense 

 of the agriculturist. 



VI 



A tract published in London in the year 1634 under the title 

 " New England's Prospects," by William Wood, contains among other 

 interesting and curious observations the following concerning the 

 American weather : 



The North-West wind coming over the Land is a cause of extreme cold 

 weather. . . . But as it is an Axiome in Nature, Nullum violentum est 

 perpetuum, No extremes lasting long, so this cold winde blowes seldome above 

 three days together, after which the weather is more tolerable, the Aire being 

 nothing so sharpe, but peradventure in foure or five dayes after this cold 

 messenger will blow afresh, commanding every man to his house, forbidding any 

 to outface him without prejudice to their noses. 



This is a capital description of the average winter climate of eastern 

 North America, dominated as it is by the constant succession of high 

 and low pressure areas moving eastward across the country. William 

 Penn in like manner writing from Pennsylvania says — "the weather 

 often changeth without notice, and is constant almost in its incon- 

 stancy" — which, as John Fiske remarks, is "an excellent description 

 of nearly all weather in the United States, except on the coast of 

 California." 



Many of these early tracts on the colonies were what might be 



5 Rhoads, " The Mammals of Pennsylvania and New Jersey," page 47. Also 

 Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1895, p. 224; 

 and 1897, p. 207. 



