Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1896 — A BISON IN PHILADELPHIA. [ARTICLE]

A BISON IN PHILADELPHIA.

Divine- Specimen of K a re America*. Buffalo Seen on Up-Town Streets, Residents of the neighborhood of 11th and Yerk streets yesterday discovered a: living specimen of that, rare animal,. onee so plentiful, the American bison,.trotting along at their very, curbstones. On the plains of the West, where millions of bison grazed;free and; unmenaneed by the white man's-pow-der, the extermination has been, so great that the herd kept by the United States Government at, Yellowstone Park is taking a place in science - beside the auk and dodo. The surprise of the Philadelphians, wbo so,unexpectedly found; sucha- rare and valuable specimen roaming at large, may be Imagined. There was, indeed,, a whole herd of bison grazing near by, and the one they discovered had wandered from it. It is. not the habiit of the bison to travel alone, the species being accustomed to graze in large herds, both for the sake of companionship and safety,. M sush large numbers they are very dangerous, and. plainsmen say that once they are stampeded nothing can stop, their disastrous course. J ' . Realizing their extraordinary opportunity, the people who discovered thebison, at once prepared to capture it, intending to add it to- tme of v the most famous herds of the couatry. They gave chase to the animal, it dashed away at a furious pace. People who met it on the street hurried out of Its way with an alacrity that showed how well the danger of a buffalo stampede was known. The plan of pursuit was not to head it off, but to. tire the animal out When running wild' on the plains it Is said that frightened sometimes run for hundreds of miles before they fall dead. It soon, however, became evident to the scientists who were attracted to the mot by the report of the startling the specimen they were after not in such active training as the deify, spirited bisons of the plains, and was not as wild as the bisons of the Oooper novels. The animals was eventually captured by a party of scouts and cowboys who were encamped in the and was taken back where R bptohged, inside the fence with the other buffaloes and the big gathering of men and hprses that go to make up the Wild West Show.—Philadelphia Public Led. ger.

Astronomers calculate that the surface of the earth contains 81.025,625 square miles, of which 23,814.121 are water and 7,811,504 are land, the water thus covering about seven-tenths of the earth’s surface. Dear weeps bat ones; cheap always tteepa.—Bfedon,