Dunkirk, in New York, northeast of Erie, is another harbor on the lake, and a terminal of the Erie Railway, the land hereabout being the monotonous level plain of western New York. Rounding the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of its outlet stream, the Niagara River, is Buffalo, the chief port of the lake and the metropolis of western New York. It is surrounded for miles upon the level land with railway terminals and car-yards, amid which factories, breweries, coal-pockets, cattle-pens and grain elevators are distributed. This great city, which has grown to four hundred thousand population, takes it name from the American bison, who roamed in large herds over the lands adjacent to Lake Erie as late as 1720, and thus gave the name to Buffalo Creek. The city covers a broad surface at the foot of Lake Erie, and is coeval with the nineteenth century, having been founded in 1801; but in the earlier years it was only a military post, and did not assume a commercial standing or begin to grow much until after the opening of the Erie Canal. The neighboring post of Niagara, a short distance down that river, was of more importance in the early days of the frontier, for it was on Niagara River, in 1669, that the Sieur de La Salle, who described the frozen stream as "like a plain paved with polished marble," built and in the following summer launched the "Griffin," the first rude vessel that explored the Upper Lakes. Afterwards one or two trading cabins appeared on Buffalo Creek, and then there was constructed a stockade fort. For thirty years the hunters and traders fought the savages and captured wild beasts, and then, after an interval of peace, the War of 1812 came with new ravages, during which the little settlement around the stockade at Buffalo was burnt by the British, who held the fort at the entrance to Niagara River. When the Erie Canal was opened, the expansion of the settlement became rapid, and its eligible position at the point where the lake commerce had to connect with the canal and the railways leading to the Atlantic seaboard has since given full scope to business enterprise and made it a large and wealthy city.