28 



THE AMERICAN MOOSE 



Moose and beaver skins were chiefly in demand. 

 From the former buff-leather was produced. This 

 was a soft, pHable, uncolored leather, originally 

 made from the skins of the buffaloes of the Eastern 

 Hemisphere. It was used for clothing, and many 

 other purposes. 



Charlevoix, who lived in Quebec as a Jesuit 

 missionary for four years following 1705, writing 

 (March 11, 1721) from St. Francis on the St. 

 Lawrence, says that moose had been very numerous 

 in that vicinity at the time of the first settlement 

 of the colony, but had been heedlessly slaughtered, 

 or frightened away, by "those who preceded us 

 in this country." And Fr. Sebastien Rasle, in a 

 letter to his brother from Narantsouak (now 

 Norridgewock, Maine), wrote : " Our savages have 

 so destroyed the game of their country that for 

 ten years they have no longer either moose [on- 

 gnaux] or deer [chevreuil]. Bears and beavers 

 have become very scarce. They seldom have any 

 food but Indian corn, beans, and squashes. ""^^ 

 This was written October 12, 1723, less than a 

 year before the missionary's tragic death. 



As colonization advanced the moose retreated. 



42 Journal d'un Voyage fait par Ordre du Roi dans VAmerique Septen*^ 

 trionale, Paris, 1744. 



4^ Jesuit Relations, vol. Ixvii., p. 213. 



