s of
civilisation. It now consists of a longitudinal strip, of which the
western boundary may be considered the Rocky Mountains, and the eastern
the Mississippi River, though it is only near the head waters of the
latter that the range of this animal extends so far east. Below the
mouth of the Missouri no buffalo are found near the Mississippi, nor
within two hundred miles of it--not, in fact, until you have cleared the
forests that fringe this stream, and penetrated a good distance into the
prairie tract. At one period, however, they roamed as far to the east
as the Chain of the Alleghanies.

In Texas, the buffalo yet extends its migrations to the head waters of
the Brazos and Colorado, but it is not a Mexican animal. Following the
Rocky Mountains from the great bend of the Rio Grande, northward, we
find no buffalo west of them until we reach the higher latitudes near
the sources of the Saskatchewan. There they have crossed the mountains,
and are now to be met with in some of the plains that lie on the other
side. This, however, is a late migration, occasioned by hunter-pressure
upon the eastern slope. The same has been observed at different
periods, at other points in the Rocky Mountain chain, where the buffalo
had made a temporary lodgment on the Pacific side of the mountains, but
where they are now entirely extinct. It is known, from the traditional
history of the tribes on the west side, that the buffalo was only a
newcomer among them, and was not indigenous to that division of the
Continent.

Following the buffaloes north, we find their range co-terminous with the
prairies. The latter end in an angle between the Peace River and the
great Slave Lake, and beyond this the buffalo does not run. There is a
point, however, across an arm of the Slave Lake where buffalo are found.
It is called Slave Point, and although contiguous to the primitive
rocks of the "Barren Grounds" it is of a similar geology (_stratified_
limestone) with the buffalo prairies to the west. This, to the
geologist, is an interesting fact.

From the Slave Lake, a line drawn to the head waters of the Mississippi,
and passing through Lake Winnipeg, will shut in the buffalo country
along the north-east. They are still found in large bands upon the
western shores of Winnipeg, on the plains of the Saskatchewan and the
Red River of the north. In fact, buffalo-hunting is one of the chief
employments of the inhabitants of that half-Indian co