134 
THE STORY OF THE BUFFALO . 
annually and the proceeds are devoted to the support of a school in the town. 
While the name by which the animal is generally known is buffalo, the cor¬ 
rect name is bison, and by naturalists and scientific men is used solely. In the 
West, however, the name buffalo' has been in vogue for so> long a time that it 
will no' doubt continue to be used, while there are any of the animals left to 
be given a name. The bull buffalo* measures about 6 feet at the withers and 
weighs about 2,000 pounds. This refers to the largest specimens now extant. 
In earlier days the range of the buffalo was from the Alleghany Mountains 
to Mexico and the far Northwest, but by 1840 few were to be found east of 
the Mississippi and the magnificent animal gathered on the plains of Kansas 
and Nebraska, although large herds roamed through the Indian Territory and 
Texas. 
I am of the opinion that, if left to^ itself, the buffalo* would have crossed the 
Sierra Nevada and coast-ranges to. reach the Pacific slopes; while it would 
ultimately have developed into several distinct races according to* the climate 
of the different regions it inhabited An example of the formation of such a 
race is afforded, indeed, by the variety known in the States as the mountain, 
or wood, buffalo. The gradual opening up of the interior of this country, with 
the advance of civilization, soon, however, put an effectual stop to* further 
increase of the species, and eventually led to* its practical extermination. 
Of all the quadrupeds that have ever lived upon the earth, probably no 
other species has ever marshaled such innumerable hosts as those of the Ameri¬ 
can buffalo. It would have been as easy to count or to estimate the number 
of leaves in a forest as to* calculate the number of buffalo living at any given 
time during the history of the species previous to* 1870. Even in South Central 
Africa, which has been exceedingly prolific in great herds of game, it is prob¬ 
able that all its quadrupeds taken together on an equal area would never have 
more than equaled the total number of buffalo in this country forty years ago*. 
As an instance of these enormous numbers, it appears that, in the early part 
of the year 1871, Col. Dodge, when passing through the great herd on the 
Arkansas, and reckoning that there were some fifteen or twenty individuals to 
the acre, states from his own observation that it was not less than twenty-five 
miles wide and fifty miles deep. This, however, was the. last of the great 
herds, and the number of individuals comprising it could not be reckoned at 
less than four millions. Many writers at and about the date mentioned speak 
of the plains being absolutely black with buffalo as far as the eye could reach. 
One man passed through a herd for a distance of upwards of one hundred and 
twenty miles right on end, in traveling on the Kansas Pacific railroad. Fre- 
