FATE OF A HERD OF BUFFALOES.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1666, 23 June 1879, Page 3

FATE OF A HERD OF BUFFALOES.

An army officer (says the “ Scientific American ”) who recently arrived in Chicago from the Yellowstone Yallcy, tells a story of what happened to a herd of buffaloes as they were migrating southward. The herd numbered 2500 head, and had beer driven out of the Milk River country by tho Indian hunters belonging to Sitting Bull’s band. When they reached the river they ventured upon the ice with their customary confidence, coming upon it with a solid front, and beginning the crossing with closed ranks. The stream at this point was very deep. When the front file, which was stretched out a quarter of a mile in length, had nearly gained tho opposite shore, the ice suddenly gave way under them. Some trappers who were eye-witnesses of the scene said it seemed as if a trench hod been opened in the ice the whole length of the column. Some four or five hundred animals tumbled into the opening all in a heap. Others fell in on top of them and sank out of sight in a twinkling. By this time tho rotten ice was {breaking under the still advancing herd. The trappers say that in less than a minute the whole body of buffaloes had been precipitated into tho river. They were wedged in so thickly that they could do nothing but struggle for a second and then disappear beneath the cakes of ice of the swift current. Not a beast in all that mighty herd tried to escape,'but in a solid phalanx they marched to their fatal bath in the “ Big Muddy. In a minute from the time tho first ice broke not a buffalo’s head or tail was to be seen. Possibly occurrences of this sort, in ancient tertiary times, helped to form tho remarkable deposits of bones found in the old lake beds of the great West and elsewhere. In these deposits the earth is literally crowded with tho bones, sometimes chiefly of one type, sometimes comprising many distinct species. In the latter case the victims were probably swept away by sudden floods, their remains mingling confusedly in quiet basins.