BUFFALO exterminated by the Iroquois before 1651, and not a single Indian lived there again for more than a century and a quarter. In 1679 La Salle passed the spot in his 60-ton sloop the Griffin, the first sailing vessel ever on Lake Erie, built at Cayuga Creek below. In 1687 the Baron La Hontan recommended it to the French government as the proper site for a fort to command the fur trade down the Niagara, and marked a "fort supposé" on his map; but no attention was paid to him. In 1764 Col. Bradstreet built Fort Erie across the river on his Indian campaign. In 1780 the Senecas, driven from their old haunts by Sullivan's campaign, settled along the creek inland; the next winter an English family captive among them heard them call the creek by a name they translated "Buffalo,”. whether rightly or not is disputed, but probably enough the herds had sought the salt-licks to the east. Their narrative was published in 1784, and in the treaty of Fort Stanwix that year between the English and the Iroquois, the name was used as familiar to the latter. The Indian settlement soon became known as "the village on the Buffalo," currently shortened to "Buffalo village," and presently to "Buffalo," without any official sanction. The land had formed part of the grant of James I. to the Plymouth Company in 1625, and that of Charles II. to the Duke of York in 1664. The consequent dispute between Massachusetts and New York was compromised in 1786, and ultimately the Holland Company of aliens became patentees in trust in 1792, and by legislative permission owners in fee in 1798. Meantime a few settlers had straggled in; a trader named Cornelius Winne in 1789; two families in 1794 and 1796; and in 1797, when there were half a dozen houses, the first white child was born, a girl. A number of others took up residence there by 1803. In that year, by the advice of their surveyor, Joseph Ellicott, the founder of Buffalo, who had assisted his brother Andrew in laying out the city of Washington, and was convinced that here was the site of another great city, the company had him plot a village, and in 1804 sold the first lots. He called it New Amsterdam, and named the streets after the members of the company, but the settlers disregarded all his names and his oxbow line for Main Street, where his own mansion was to be. In 1810 the town of Buffalo was incorporated, including several now separate townships. In 1811 the first newspaper, the Buffalo Gazette, was established. In 1813 Buffalo village was incorporated, and received a new charter in 1822. In the War of 1812; after the storming of Fort Niagara by the British in December, a force of British and Indians under Gen. Rial was detailed to destroy Black Rock and Buffalo; on the 29th captured the latter, and the next day burned all but seven or eight houses, coming back I January and burning all but three of the rest. The settlers re-occupied their homes to some extent on the 6th, but it was not generally rebuilt till 1815; on 10 April 1814 Gen. Scott put it under military rule. In 1818 the first steamer, Walk-in-the-Water, was launched. For many years, however, supremacy was balanced between it and Black Rock down the river, now the northern part of the city, where at that time was the ferry across the Niagara to the Canada side; but in 1825, after a fierce struggle, the former secured the terminal of the Erie Canal, and in five years its 2,412 inhabitants had grown to over 8,000, and its future was assured. Long after, however, able capitalists invested heavily in Dunkirk, 48 miles south, in faith that it and not Buffalo was the coming lake port. In 1832, it became a city, and the next year it annexed Black Rock. Buffalo has given two Presidents to the United States, Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland, the latter its mayor in 1882. From 1 May to 1 Nov. 1901, the Pan-American Exposition was held here, and on 6 September President McKinley was shot while attending it. See publications of the Buffalo Historical Society; Smith, 'History of the City of Buffalo and Erie County) (1884); Ketchum, 'History of Buffalo' (1864-5); Powell, Historic Towns of the Middle States' (1899). EDWARD H. BUTLER, Editor Buffalo Evening News. Buffalo, a name frequently misapplied to the American bison, but more properly designating a type of heavy oxen, of the tropics of the Old World, long domesticated in the Orient. Buffalo are characterized by their long, angulated horns, broad and flat at the base, so as to form in some cases a shield over the forehead; and by their broad, splay feet, particularly adapted to wading in muddy waters, where they mainly feed on aquatic grasses and other plants. There are three distinct species. The largest and fiercest buffalo is the black "cape," or South African species (Bos caffer) found throughout the entire south of Africa, northward to Abyssinia. It reaches a length of six feet, and in old bulls the relatively short horns join at their bases, so as to form a helmetlike mass, which makes the head almost invulnerable. The horns curve "outward, downward, and backward, and then foreward, upward, and inward." This buffalo is bluish-black, and nearly hairless. Its chief enemies are the lion and man, whose combined efforts have greatly decreased its numbers. The buffalo are warned of the approach of danger by the buffalo-birds (q.v.), which constantly hover near them. Another species (B. pumilus) is widely scattered throughout the west, and central parts of Africa. It is smaller than the more southern species, and is chestnut in color. The most widely domesticated of the buffalo is that of India (B. bubalus), called "arni» (feminine "arna") by the Hindu. It differs greatly in appearance from the African species, having a cow-shaped head, and long, much flattened, triangular horns, covered with transverse wrinkles, which curve regularly outwards and backwards towards the shoulder, and do not form a buckler over the forehead. The bull is ashy-black in color, frequently with white feet, and is smaller than the African buffalo, never exceeding 16 hands at the withers. It is in the wild state an animal of tremendous power and ferocity, and is regarded by sportsmen as one of the most dangerous beasts of the jungle. It has long been employed in the rice-fields of the Orient, as far east as Japan; the ordinary "water-buffalo" or "carabao" of the Philippines is a small variety. It was long ago introduced into Egypt for service in the boggy lowlands of the Delta, and is now extending up the Nile to the lake regions of central Africa. A variety exists in the Niger valley, and another, called "sanga," and distinguished by its very long horns, is do mesticated in Abyssinia. The Indian buffalo is also employed in marshy farming districts in Turkey, Hungary, Italy, and Spain, where it is able to work in ground too wet and soft for the other cattle, and to pasture upon coarse, mars. grasses. Its hide makes good leather, and its milk is excellent, and is greatly used in India for the making of the semi-fluid butter called "ghee." Buffalo-bird, any of several birds which remain about cattle, and feed upon their parasites. Most of them are starlings (q.v.) of plain dark plumage, with the habit of gathering into noisy flocks. Those of South Africa, almost always seen in company with buffalos and rhinoceroses, belong to the genus Buphaga, and are commonly termed "ox-peckers," "beefeaters," or "rhinoceros-birds." They cluster upon the backs of these animals while they rest or slowly feed, and pick from them ticks and similar pests; and they also serve as watchmen for their hosts, arousing them by their cries whenever anything suspicious happens. Buffalo Bug. See CARPET BEETLE. Buffalo-fish, a large, coarse, fresh water fish of which there are four varieties; three inhabit-building ing the waters of the Mississippi valley, and one the river Usumacinto in Mexico. The formation of the head suggests the name, for from the nose to the top of the shoulders' it has the high, humpy pitch of the bison. In Louisiana they are known as "gourdheads." The common big-mouthed buffalo-fish (Ictiobus cyprinella) reaches a length of three feet and a weight of 50 pounds. In the spring freshets of the Mississippi valley at spawning time, it swims in great shoals on to the flooded marshes, where the receding waters make it an easy victim to the farmers, who kill great numbers of them for fertilizers. In body they are stout and of a dull, brownish-olive hue, not silvery, with dusky fins. The black, or mongrel, buffalo-fish (I. urus) has a smaller, more oblique mouth, and a much darker color; the fins being almost black. The small-mouthed, or white, buffalo-fish (I. bubalus) is the most abundant. It does not run so large as the common buffalo, 35 pounds being its limit. In color it is pale, almost silvery. See Jordan and Evermann, American Food and Game Fishes.' Buffalo-gnat, a fly allied to the black-fly (q.v.), Simulium pecuarum, of the family Simuliida, order Diptera, a larger and more formidable species than the black-fly of the northern and subarctic regions. It attacks in the lower Ohio and the Mississippi valley various domestic cattle, horses, sheep, poultry, dogs, and cats, and is especially hurtful to mules and horses, killing many. Hogs show at first the effects of the bite but very little; yet large numbers die soon after the attack, while others die about six weeks after the disappearance of the buffalo-gnats; they usually perish from large ulcerating sores, which cause lood-poisoning. Animals of various kinds become gradually accustomed to these bites, and during a long-continued invasion but few are killed toward the end of it. As a rule, gnats may be expected soon after the first continuous warm weather in early spring. See GNATS. of New England and the older Atlantic sea- for New York State at the Pan- Buffalo Historical Society, Buffalo, N. Y. Foremost among institutions of its kind west The Historical Society building stands in a beautiful and easily accessible site in Delaware Park, the principal park of Buffalo. It is 130 by 80 feet in dimensions, 50 feet high, perhaps the most notable example in America of the pure Doric order of architecture. It is of white marble, the northern facade faced with threequarter columns, the south side having a portico 61 by 17 feet, embellished by 10 Doric columns and approached by marble steps 40 feet in width. The columns are of the same proportion as those of the Parthenon, 3 ft. 6 in. in diameter at the base. Within, the chief structural material is black marble. Situated on sloping ground, the edifice has three available floors, the basement being for the most part but little below the ground level. In the middle of the main floor is the grand hall, two stories high, and lighted, as is the upper floor, by side windows and skylights. The library, lecture hall and administrative offices are on the main floor, the museums and portrait galleries above. A |