Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/392

388 or buffalo had extended its range eastward into the region about the headstreams of the Ohio and Tennessee and there is evidence that an occasional straggler had even reached the upper valleys of streams flowing into the Atlantic. Remains of the animal found in caves and deposits in several localities testify to this eastward extension of its range in pre-Columbian times. The word "buffalo," occurring as it does in certain place-names of an early date throughout the middle Atlantic region, offers further evidence as to the one time presence of the animal in these localities, and there is at least one well-authenticated notice of its having been killed in central Pennsylvania as late as 1790.

Of the smaller animals many, like the beaver and the otter, have disappeared, though the latter animal is still rarely seen here and there on remote streams, even in the settled districts. The beaver formerly built its dams and lodges in many of the streams throughout the forest region and traces of its occupancy may still be found in certain woodland meadows as well as in various place-names. Other species seem to have suffered little if any diminution, as the fox, skunk, mink, woodchuck, musk-rat, the raccoon and opossum, while rabbits and squirrels multiply apace. These have all in part adjusted themselves to the new conditions, many of them thriving at the expense of the agriculturist.

A tract published in London in the year 1634 under the title "New England's Prospects," by William Wood, contains among other interesting and curious observations the following concerning the American weather:

This is a capital description of the average winter climate of eastern North America, dominated as it is by the constant succession of high and low pressure areas moving eastward across the country. William Penn in like manner writing from Pennsylvania says—"the weather often changeth without notice, and is constant almost in its inconstancy"—which, as John Fiske remarks, is "an excellent description of nearly all weather in the United States, except on the coast of California."

Many of these early tracts on the colonies were what might be