# Historic Highways of America/Volume 1/Part 2/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II
RANGE AND HABITS OF THE BUFFALO
THE range of the buffalo or bison in the United States formerly extended from Great Slave Lake on the north to the northeastern provinces of Mexico on the south—from 62° latitude to 25°. Its westward range extended beyond the Rocky mountains and embraced quite a large area, remains having recently been discovered as far west as the Blue mountains in Oregon; farther south, herds roamed over the region occupied by the Great Salt Lake basin and grazed westward as far as the Sierra Nevada mountains. East of the Rocky mountains the feeding-grounds embraced all the area drained by the Ohio river and its tributaries, extending southward beyond the Rio Grande and northward to the Great Lakes as far as the eastern extremity of Lake Erie. The southeastern range probably did not extend beyond the Tennessee ​river, and only in the upper portions of North and South Carolina did it extend beyond the Alleghanies.
The habitat of the buffalo included feeding-grounds, stamping-grounds, wallows and licks. Their feeding-grounds embraced the meadow valleys where the choicest grazing was to be found. The habit of keeping together in immense herds while feeding soon exhausted the food in any single locality and rendered a slow, constant movement necessary. A herd so immense that it remained in the sight of a traveler for days required a vast area of feeding-ground to sustain it during a season.
When a herd rested to ruminate the buffaloes arranged themselves in a peculiar, characteristic manner—the young always in the center with the mothers, the males forming a compact circle around them. By such a conformation were the "stamping-grounds" made—each animal crowding and pushing from the outside of the herd, where flies and insects were more troublesome, toward the center.
​A peculiar custom of the buffalo was "wallowing." In the pools of water the old fathers of the herd lowered themselves on one knee, and with the aid of their horns, soon had an excavation into which the water trickled, forming a cool, muddy bath. From his ablutions each arose, coated with mud, allowing the patient successor to take his turn. Each entered the "wallow," threw himself flat upon his back, and, by means of his feet and horns, violently forced himself around until he was completely immersed. After many buffaloes had thus immersed themselves and, by adhesion, had carried away each his share of the sticky mass, a hole two feet deep and often twenty feet in diameter was left, and, even to this day, marks the spot of a buffalo wallow. The "delectable laver of mud" soon dried upon the buffalo and left him encased in an impenetrable armor secure from the attacks of insects.
While the actions of a herd of buffaloes were very similar to those of a herd of cattle, yet very dissimilar to the habit of domestic cattle was their propensity to roll upon the ground. Though a bulky, ungraceful ​animal in appearance, the buffalo rolled himself completely over, apparently with more ease than a horse. A buffalo, by rolling over in this manner, often dusted himself in what was known as a "dry wallow."
The buffaloes' licks, which afforded salt, that mineral so necessary to their health, were the foci of all their roads, the favorite spots about which the herds gyrated and between which they were continually passing. So important were these considered when white men first entered the West that every lick was carefully included in all the maps of the first geographers. Filson's map of Kentucky, for instance, made during the Revolutionary period, contains a large number of circles with dots about them which were the signs of "Salt Springs & Licks," all of them being connected, by trails, "some cleared, others not."
The saline materials of these licks are derived from imprisoned sea-water which has been stored away in the strata below the action of surface waters. When these rocks lie nearer the surface than the line of drainage, the saline materials are leached ​away. The saline materials increase with the depth until the level is reached where we find the water saturated with the ingredients of old sea-water. The displacement of these imprisoned waters is induced by the sinking of surface water through the vertical interstices of soil and rock, and the natural tendency of the water to restore the hydrostatic balance. This action is much more likely to occur when the rocks above the drainage are limestone or shale with an underlying bed of rock composed of sandstone or other rock through which water may permeate. That such a pressure exists and that some such process is at work is shown by the waters rising ten feet or more above the surface when enclosed in a pipe.
The endurance and speed of the buffalo far exceeded that possessed by domesticated cattle. With a good start a swift horse could only with difficulty overtake a herd of buffaloes. Their gait was an awkward, lumbering gallop, and the speed which they attained was much greater than it appeared to be. When running at full speed, rough ground and an occasional ​tumble were taken in a matter-of-fact way and seemed scarcely to retard the progress of the herd. If a ravine intersected its trail, the herd dashed down the vertical, rocky sides and on up the opposite slope, resuming its onward rush as if no obstacle had appeared.
The extensive courses of the buffaloes necessitated the crossing of large streams. This often caused a loss of many of the old and young members of the herds, especially if the stream was swift or swollen. Often, after having successfully battled their way entirely across the stream, a bluff or a miry landing-place beyond proved disastrous. Buffalo herds boldly crossed rivers on the ice. Large numbers have been known to be drowned, when crowding too closely together, by the breaking of the ice beneath their weight. Herds have even been known to cross upon floating ice, when they fell an easy prey to the Indians, and many were drowned.
The following incident is related by Colonel Dodge: "Late in the summer of 1867 a herd of probably four thousand buffaloes attempted to cross the South Platte near ​Plum Creek. The river was rapidly subsiding, being nowhere over a foot or two in depth, and the channels in the bed were filled or filling with loose quicksand. The buffaloes in front were hopelessly stuck. Those immediately behind, urged on by the horns and pressure of those yet further in the rear, trampled over their struggling companions to be themselves engulfed in the devouring sand. This was continued until the bed of the river, nearly half a mile broad, was covered with dead or dying buffaloes. Only a comparative few actually crossed the river, and these were soon driven back by hunters. It was estimated that considerably more than half the herd, or over two thousand buffaloes, paid for this attempt with their lives."
* ↑ Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Kentucky, vol. i., part ii.
* ↑ Chicago Inter Ocean, August 5, 1875.
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