Note 56 — Front matter (continued 3)

(page page 107).—The villages and hunting and fishing grounds of the Indians were connected by a network of such trails through the forests and over the prairies. Many of the most important of these were no doubt originally made by buffalo, in their long journeys between pastures, or in their migrations westward in advance of oncoming settlement. The buffalo traces were followed by the Indians upon their hunts; and the best passes over both the Alleghanies and Rockies were first discovered and trod by these indigenous cattle. The natural evolution has been: First the buffalo trace, then the Indian trail, next the pioneer’s path, broadened and straightened at last for wagons, then the military road, or the plank-road, and finally the railroad. Broadly speaking, the continent has been spanned by this means. There are still discoverable, in isolated portions of the Middle West, remains of a few of the most important of the old Indian trails, such as have not been adapted into white men’s roads.