174 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
the Gulf of Mexico. These were swampy and had pro- 
bably low thick woods. That it did not exist on the At- 
lantic coast is rended probable, from the circumstance that 
all the early writers whom Mr. Calhoun has consulted on 
the subject, and they are numerous, do not mention them 
as existing then, but further back. Thomas Morton, one 
of the first settlers in New England, says, that the Indians 
“ have also made description of great herds of well growne 
beasts, that live about the parts of this lake,” Erocoise, 
now Lake Ontario, “such as the Christian world, (untile 
this discovery,) hath not bin made acquainted with. These 
beasts are of the bignesse of a cowe, their flesh being very 
good foode, their hides good lether, their fleeces very use- 
ful, being a kind of wolle, as fine almost as the wolle of 
the beaver, and the salvages do make garments thereof;” 
he adds, “it is tenne yeares since first the relation of these 
things came to the eares of the English.” We have intro- 
duced this quotation, partly with a view to show that the 
fineness of the Buffalo wool, which has caused it within a 
few years to become an object of commerce, was known 
as far back as Morton’s time; he compares it with that of 
the beaver, and with some truth; we were shown lower 
down on Red River, hats that appeared to be of a very 
good quality; they had been made in London with the 
wool of the Buffalo. An acquaintance on the part of 
Europeans with the animal itself, can be referred to nearly 
a century before that; for in 1532, Guzman met with Buf- 
falo in the province of Cinaloa. De Laet says, upon the 
authority of Gomara, when speaking of the Buffalo in Qui- 
vira, that they are almost black, and seldom diversified 
with white spots. In his history written subsequently to 
1684, Hubbard does not enumerate this animal among 
those of New England. Purchas informs us, that in 1613 
the adventurers discovered in Virginia, “a slow kinde of 
cattell as bigge as kine, which were good meate.” From 
Lawson, we find that great plenty of Buffaloes, elks, &c., 
existed near Cape Fear river and its tributaries; and we 
know that some of those who first settled the Abbeville 
district in South Carolina, in 1756, found the Buffalo 
there. De Soto’s party, who traversed East Florida, 
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas Territory, and 
Louisiana, from 1539 to 1543, saw no Buffalo, they were 
told that the animal was north of them; however, they 
frequently met with Buffalo hides, particularly when west 
of the Mississippi; and Du Pratz, who published in 1758, 
informs us that at that time the animal did not exist in 
lower Louisiana. We know however of one author, Ber- 
nard Romans, who wrote in 1774, and who speaks of the 
Buffalo as a benefit of nature bestowed upon Florida. 
There can be no doubt that the animal approached the 
Gulf of Mexico, near the Bay of St. Bernard; for Alvar 
Nunez, about the year 1535, saw them not far from the 
coast; and Joater, one hundred and fifty years afterwards, 
saw them at the Bay of St. Bernard. It is probable that 
this Bay is the lowest point of latitude at which this ani- 
mal has been found east of the Rocky Mountains. There 
can be no doubt of their existence west of those moun- 
tains, though Father Venegas does not include them among 
the animals of California, and although they were not seen 
west of the mountains by Lewis and Clarke, nor mention- 
ed by Harmon and Mackenzie as existing in New Caledo- 
nia, a country of immense extent, which is included be- 
tween the Pacific Ocean, the Rocky Mountains, the terri- 
tory of the United States, and the Russian possessions, on 
the north-west coast of America. Yet their existence at 
present on the Columbia, appears to be well ascertained, 
and we are told that there is a tradition among the natives, 
that shortly before the visit of our enterprising explorers, 
destructive fires had raged over the prairies and driven the 
Buffalo east of the mountains. Mr. Dougherty, the very 
able and intelligent sub-agent, who accompanied the ex- 
pedition to the Rocky Mountains, and who communicated 
so much valuable matter to Mr. Say, asserted that he had 
seen a few of them in the mountains, but not west of them. 
It is highly probable that the Buffalo ranged on the western 
side of the Rocky Mountains, to as low a latitude as on the 
eartern side. De Laet says, on the authority of Henera, 
that they grazed as far south as the banks of the river Ya- 
quimi. In the same chapter this author states, that Mar- 
tin Perez had, in 1591, estimated the province of Cinaloa, 
in which this river runs, to be three hundred leagues from 
the city of Mexico. This river is supposed to be the 
same, which, on Mr. Tanner’s map of North America, 
(Philadelphia, 1S22,) is named Hiaqui, and situated be- 
tween the 27th and 28th degrees of north latitude. Perhaps, 
however, it may be the Rio Gila which empties itself in 
latitude 32°. Although we may not be able to determine 
with precision the southern limit of the roamings of the 
Buffalo west of the mountains, the fact of their existence 
there in great abundance, is amply settled by the testimony 
of De Laet, on the authority of Gomara, 1. 6, c. 17, and 
of Purchas, p. 778. Its limits to the north are not easier 
to determine. In Hakluyts’ collection we have an ex- 
tract of a letter from Mr. Anthonie Parkhurst, in 157S, 
in which houses these words: in the Island of Newfound- 
land there “are mightie beastes, like to camels in great- 
nesse, and their feete cloven. I did see them farre off, 
not able to discerne them perfectly, but their steps shewed 
that their feete were cloven and bigger than the feete of 
camels. I suppose them to be a kind of buffes, which I 
read to bee in the country’s adjacent and very many in 
the ffrme land.” In the same collection, p. 689, we find, 
