GENERAL NOTES 
55 
practically the same. He goes on to say: addition, however, to the game 
found in that [western] section, the white bear [= grizzly], the mountain sheep 
and the buffalo, are also found, in this [eastern] section. The latter of which, 
are here found in much greater numbers, than in any other portion of the country, 
west of the Rocky Mountains. In many portions of the country, the plains and 
hills are literally covered with them. Several tribes of the Indians here, as in 
Oregon, subsist almost entirely upon the beef of the buffalo, which they are 
enabled to obtain, in any desired quantities.”^ 
This reference to buffalo and grizzly bears in California requires explanation. 
At the period in question (1843) California was a Mexican province extending 
easterly from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountains. Hastings states specifi- 
cally that Green River ‘fis to California what the Columbia is to Oregon, the 
Mississippi to the United States” and so on (p. 72). He states also: “The 
Colorado and its tributaries water much of the northern portion; most of the 
southern, and all the eastern portion of Upper California” (p. 75); and further- 
more that Great Salt Lake is “situated entirely in California” (p. 76). This 
accounts for the mention of buffalo in connection with grizzly bears and mountain 
sheep in California. 
Chittenden’s Map of the “Trans-Mississippi Territory ”2 during the period 
of the Fur Trade from 1807 to 1843 places the northeastern boundary of the 
Mexican Possessions far enough east to include not only the Green River country 
but also the Medicine Bow Mountains of Wyoming. — C. Hart Merriam, Wash- 
ington, D. C. 
1 Lansford W. Hastings, The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California, 
p. 99, 1845. 
2 Hiram Martin Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, Vol. 3, 
1902. 
