I have already called attention elsewhere (Cosmos, vol. ii. note 455, English ed.) to the circumstance that, according to a statement of the trustworthy Gomara, (Historia General de las Indias, cap. 214) there was still living in the sixteenth century, in the north-west of Mexico, in 40° latitude, an Indian tribe, whose principal riches consisted in herds of tame bisons (bueyes con una giba). But notwithstanding the possibility of taming the bison, notwithstanding the quantity of milk it yields, and notwithstanding the herds of lamas in the Cordilleras of Peru, no pastoral life or pastoral people were found when America was discovered, and there is no historical evidence of this intermediate stage in the life of nations ever having existed there. It is worthy of remark that the American buffalo or bison has exerted an influence on the progress of geography in trackless mountainous regions. These animals wander in the winter, in search of a milder climate, in herds of several thousands to the south of the Arkansas River. In these migrations their size and unwieldiness make it difficult for them to pass over high mountains. When, therefore, a well-trodden buffalo path is met with, it is advisable to follow it, as being sure to conduct to the most convenient pass across the mountains. The best routes through the Cumberland Mountains, in the south-west parts of Virginia and Kentucky, in the Rocky Mountains between the sources of the Yellow Stone and the Platte, and between the southern branch of the Columbia and the Rio Colorado of California, were thus marked out beforehand by buffalo paths. The advance of settlement and cultivation has gradually driven the buffalo from all the Eastern states: they formerly roamed on the banks of the Mississipi and of the Ohio far beyond Pittsburg. (Archæologia Americana, vol. ii., 1836, p. 139.)