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North-Eastern Mexico, westward across the Rocky Mountains into New Mexico, 
Utah, and Idaho, and northward across a vast treeless waste to the bleak and 
inhospitable shores of the Great Slave Lake itself.” Its maximum development 
was probably reached about a century and a half ago, when the greater part of 
North America was practically an unknown country so far as Europeans are 
concerned. And Mr. Hornaday is of opinion that, if left to itself, the bison 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 North America, 
with the advance of civilisation, soon, however, put an effectual stop to further 
increase of the species, and eventually led to its practical extermination. 
Numbers and In regard to its former numerical abundance, Mr. Hornaday 1 
Extermination, observes that “ of all the quadrupeds that have ever lived upon the 
earth, probably no other species has ever marshalled such innumerable hosts as 
those of the American bison. It would have been as easy to count or to estimate 
the number of leaves in a forest as to calculate the number of bison 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 
probable that all its quadrupeds taken together on an equal area would never have 
more than equalled 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 Mr. Hornaday 
estimates that 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 bison as far as the eye could reach; and Mr. 
W. Blackmore tells of passing through a herd for a distance of upwards of one 
hundred and twenty miles right on end, in travelling on the Kansas Pacific Rail¬ 
road. Frequently, indeed, trains on that line were derailed in attempting to pass 
through herds of bison, until the drivers learned it was advisable to bring their 
engines to a standstill when they found the line blocked in this manner. 
Col. Dodge, writing of his experiences on the Arkansas alluded to above, 
observes that “ the whole country appeared one great mass of bison, moving slowly 
to the northward; and it was only when actually among them that it could be 
ascertained that the apparently solid mass was an agglomeration of numerous small 
herds, of from fifty to two hundred animals, separated from the surrounding herds 
by greater or less space, but still separated. The bison on the hills, seeing an 
unusual object in their rear, started at full speed directly towards me, stamped¬ 
ing and bringing with them the numberless herds through which they passed, 
and pouring down upon all the herds, no longer separated, but one immense 
compact mass of plunging animals.” 
1 When quoting from Mr. Hornaday and other writers we have substituted the word bison for buifalo. 
VOL. II.—13 
