The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-01-13
PASSING OF THE BISON.

One of the most extraordinary
events that has characterized the last
half of the present century is the ex-
termination, the wiping out, of the
American bison. There is little use
in resorting to invective or endeavor-
ing to stigmatize those who are guilty
of this crime, but it would be we'll if
the acts could be held up in bright
light, that those who committed them
might be excoriated in the time to
come, when few bones and pictures
will alone tell the story of a mighty
race swept from the face of the earth
by the civilized people of the nine
teenth century.
"In 1870, and later" said an army
officer to the writer, "the plains were
alive with bison, and in crossing at
places 1 had difficulty in avoiding
them, so vast were the herds. Ifany
one had told me then that in twenty
or thirty years they would have be-
come almost entirely extinct, should
have regarded the statement as that
of an insane person.
That so many of these animals could
have been killed ir mere wantonness
seems incredible when their vast num-
bers are realized. We first hear of
the bison from Cortez and his follow
a geological garden, the specimen, in
all probability, having been caught in
Coahuila. In 1880 Cabeza saw them
in Texas; and I542 Coronado found
a herd in what is now the Indian Ter
ritory; one of his officers described
them as horrible beasts that demor-
allied the horses. In 1912 Sir SAM
uel Argoll observed herds of bison
near the national capitol, and, in all
probability, 2S7 years ago herds Of
bison grazed on the site of the Capt.
tol building at Washington. In 1878
Father Hennepin observed them in
what is now Northern Illinois, and in
October, 1929, Col. w. Bird saw
herds in North Carolina and Virginia.
These and other facts have provi-
ded data by which the early geograph
ica1 distribution of the bison has been
determined, and it is known that this
grand animal, that is to-day repre-
sented by few individuals, formerly
ranged in millions from the Atlantic
seaboard to the Gulf of Mexico, from
Texas to the Great Slave Lake, and
as far west as Central Nevada. As
to their numbers, they were like the
sands of the seashore, and the ac-
counts given by those who hunted
them twenty or thirty years ago to-
day seem like vagaries of disorder
ed imagination. Mr.. Hornaday, who
has hunted in South and Central
Africa, where game is remarkably
plentiful, states that the bison of this
country previous to 1870 exceeded, in
all probability, all the African game
of every kind. An army officer in
service on the plains in 1867 stated to
the writer that on one occasion he
was surrounded by buffaloes, and that
from the top of a small hill he could
see nothing but black mass of their
bodies. 1t was impossible to estimate
their numbers, and the party were in
great fear lest they should be caught
in a stampede, the rush being irresis-
tib1e. Col. Dodge, in his memoirs,
states that on one occasion he rode
twenty ave miles in Arkansas, always
being in herd of buffaloes, or many
small herds, with but a small sepa-
rating strip between them. The an
imals paid but lit lie attention to him,
merely moving slowly out of the way
or advancing, bringing the whole
herd of thousands down on him with
the roar of an avalanche. This he
met by standing fast and firing when
they came within short range, the
shot causing them so divide. In one
day Col. Dodge killed twenty six
bison from his wagon; not in sport,
but as protection. Otherwise they
would have run him down and crush
ed man, horses and wagon.
This herd observed by Col. Dodge
was later found to be fifty miles wide
and to occupy five days in passing
given point on its way north. From
high rock, from which points ten
miles distant could be seen in every
direction, the earth seemed to be GOV
cred with bison. To make accur-
ate estimate of the numbers seen
woud be impossible. but Mr.. Horna-
day, by conservative calculation es-
Inmates that Col. Dodge must have
seen four hundred and eighty thous-
and, and that the herd comprised half
million buhaloes. A train on the
Kansas Pacific road in that State in
1868 passed between the towns of
Ellsworth and Sheridan-I2o miles
through a continuous herd of buffaloes.
They were packed so that the earth
was black, and more than once the
train was stopped, the surging masses
becoming a menace to human safety.