6. _Statistics of the slaughter._--The most careful and reliable estimate ever made of results of the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd is that of Col. Richard Irving Dodge, and it is the only one I know of which furnishes a good index of the former size of that herd. Inasmuch as this calculation was based on actual statistics, supplemented by personal observations and inquiries made in that region during the great slaughter, I can do no better than to quote Colonel Dodge almost in full.[66]
[Note 66: Plains of the Great West, pp. 139-144.]
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad furnished the following statistics of the buffalo product carried by it during the years 1872, 1873, and 1874:
+----------------------------------------------------+ | _Buffalo product._ | +----------------------------------------------------+ | | No. of skins | | | |Year. | carried. | Meat carried. | Bone carried.| +----------------------------------------------------+ | | | Pounds. | Pounds. | |1872 | 165,721 | ... | 1,135,300 | |1873 | 251,443 | 1,617,600 | 2,743,100 | |1874 | 42,289 | 632,800 | 6,914,950 | +------|--------------|---------------|--------------+ |Total | 459,453 | 2,250,400 | 10,793,350 | +----------------------------------------------------+
The officials of the Kansas Pacific and Union Pacific railroads either could not or would not furnish any statistics of the amount of the buffalo product carried by their lines during this period, and it became necessary to proceed without the actual figures in both cases. Inasmuch as the Kansas Pacific road cuts through a portion of the buffalo country which was in every respect as thickly inhabited by those animals as the region traversed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé, it seemed absolutely certain that the former road hauled out fully as many hides as the latter, if not more, and its quota is so set down. The Union Pacific line handled a much smaller number of buffalo hides than either of its southern rivals, but Colonel Dodge believes that this, "with the smaller roads which touch the buffalo region, taken together, carried about as much as either of the two principal buffalo roads."
Colonel Dodge considers it reasonably certain that the statistics furnished by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé road represent only one-third of the entire buffalo product, and there certainly appears to be good ground for this belief. It is therefore in order to base further calculations upon these figures.