Buffalo, city, United States
Buffalo, city (1990 pop. 328,123), seat of Erie co., W N.Y., on Lake Erie and the Niagara and Buffalo rivers; inc. 1832. With more than 37 mi (60 km) of waterfront, it is a major commercial and industrial port and railroad hub. Buffalo is a diversified manufacturing and financial center, with a large health-care industry.In 1803 a village was laid out on the site by Joseph Ellicott for the Holland Land Company Holland Land Company, Dutch enterprise active in the settlement of much of W New York and some of NW Pennsylvania. Organized by Dutch bankers in 1796, it secured lands in New York (known as the Holland Purchase) from Robert Morris, who had assembled them as part of a
..... Click the link for more information. . Almost destroyed by fire (1813) in the War of 1812, it recovered slowly until the opening (1825) of the Erie Canal Erie Canal, artificial waterway, c.360 mi (580 km) long; connecting New York City with the Great Lakes via the Hudson River. Locks were built to overcome the 571-ft (174-m) difference between the level of the river and that of Lake Erie.
..... Click the link for more information. , after which it became a major Great Lakes port. The city developed as a flour-milling center and later thrived on steel milling, automobile and locomotive manufacturing, and other heavy industries. These all fell into decline, however, and by the 1980s Buffalo had lost its traditional economic base. The area has since benefited from the free trade agreement (1988) between the United States and Canada, attracting Canadian investment in real estate and manufacturing, but the city's population has continued the decline that began after World War II. By 2003 the decline led to a city financial crisis, and the state established an oversight authority to restore the city to fiscal health.
Buffalo's educational institutions include the State Univ. of New York (the city's largest employer), with campuses at Buffalo and suburban Amherst; Canisius College; and D'Youville College. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Buffalo Museum of Science are well known. Notable buildings include the city hall (1932) and the Guaranty Building (1895–96; formerly the Prudential Building), designed by Louis Sullivan Sullivan, Louis Henry, 1856–1924, American architect, b. Boston, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He was of great importance in the evolution of modern architecture in the United States.
..... Click the link for more information. . Buffalo has a music hall and a philharmonic orchestra and a noted park system created by F. L. Olmsted Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822–1903, American landscape architect and writer, b. Hartford, Conn. Although his Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England
..... Click the link for more information. . The Buffalo Bills play football in Rich Stadium (in nearby Orchard Park), and Memorial Auditorium is home to hockey's Sabres. The Peace Bridge (1927) connects Buffalo with Fort Erie, Ont.
Grover Cleveland Cleveland, Grover (Stephen Grover Cleveland), 1837–1908, 22d (1885–89) and 24th (1893–97) President of the United States, b. Caldwell, N.J.; son of a Presbyterian clergyman.
..... Click the link for more information. became mayor of Buffalo in 1882. Here in 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition, President McKinley McKinley, William, 1843–1901, 25th president of the United States (1897–1901), b. Niles, Ohio. He was educated at Poland (Ohio) Seminary and Allegheny College.
..... Click the link for more information. was assassinated; Theodore Roosevelt Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858–1919, 26th President of the United States (1901–9), b. New York City.
Early Life and Political Posts
..... Click the link for more information. took the presidential oath in Buffalo. The McKinley monument and the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site (see National Parks and Monuments National Parks and Monuments
National Parks
Name
Type1
Location
Year authorized
Size
acres (hectares)
Description
Acadia
NP
SE Maine
1919
48,419 (19,603)
Mountain and coast scenery.
..... Click the link for more information. (table)) commemorate the two events. Millard Fillmore Fillmore, Millard, 1800–1874, 13th President of the United States (July, 1850–Mar., 1853), b. Locke (now Summerhill), N.Y. Because he was compelled to work at odd jobs at an early age to earn a living his education was irregular and incomplete.
..... Click the link for more information. 's home was in Buffalo.
buffalo, in zoology
buffalo, name commonly applied to the American bison bison, large hoofed mammal, genus Bison, of the cattle family. Bison have short horns and humped, heavily mantled shoulders that slope downward to the hindquarters...... Click the link for more information. but correctly restricted to certain related African and Asian mammals of the cattle family. The water buffalo, or Indian buffalo, Bubalus bubalis, is found in S Asia. It is a large, extremely strong, dark gray animal, standing nearly 6 ft (180 cm) at the shoulder and weighing up to 2,000 lb (900 kg). Its widely spread horns curve out and back in a semicircle and may reach a length of 6 ft (180 cm). For many centuries it has been domesticated as a draft animal, but wild forms still exist in Borneo and herds descended from domesticated animals live in a wild state elsewhere. Water buffalo live in swampy areas and near rivers, where they wallow in the mud. Wild water buffalo are extremely fierce and have been known to kill fully grown tigers. The domestic forms are somewhat more docile. They are used throughout S Asia to pull plows and carts; they are of little importance as dairy animals, as their milk is scant. Their diet consists chiefly of grass. The anoa, Anoa depressicornus, also called dwarf buffalo or wood buffalo, is the smallest of the buffalo, standing only 40 in. (100 cm) high at the shoulder; it is found in Sulawesi. Its slightly larger relative, the tamarou, Anoa mindorensis, is found in the Mindoro region of the Philippines. Both are forest dwellers. The large, fierce cape buffalo cape buffalo, species of short-haired African ungulate, or hoofed mammal, Syncerus caffer. The cape, or African, buffalo may reach 7 ft (2.1 m) in length, weigh more than 1,500 lb (670 kg), and reach a height of 5 ft (1.5 m) at the shoulder.
..... Click the link for more information. is found in Africa. Buffalo are classified in the phylum Chordata Chordata , phylum of animals having a notochord, or dorsal stiffening rod, as the chief internal skeletal support at some stage of their development. Most chordates are vertebrates (animals with backbones), but the phylum also includes some small marine invertebrate
..... Click the link for more information. , subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Artiodactyla, family Bovidae.
Bibliography
See D. A. Dary, The Buffalo Book (1974).
buffalo
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Buffalo
City (pop., 2000: 292,648), western New York, U.S. Located at the northeastern point of Lake Erie on the Niagara River, it is the terminus of the New York State Barge Canal. Settled by American Indians in 1780, the site was laid out as a town at the beginning of the 19th century. It was a military post in the War of 1812 and was burned by the British. Rebuilt in 1814–15, it became the western terminus of the Erie Canal, which brought an economic boom to the community. A major port on the St. Lawrence Seaway and the main U.S. gateway to Ontario's Toronto-Hamilton industrial region, it processes much of U.S.-Canadian trade. It is also an educational and medical research centre.
buffalo
Buffalo
buffalo [′bəf·ə‚lō]
Buffalo
ruminant mammals of the family Cavicornia of the order Artiodactyla, similar to oxen. Buffalo have a heavy and bulky torso, a short neck, and short strong legs. The head is wide. The forward part of the upper lip is hairless and has on it the bare moist “nose mirror.” The skin on the lower part of the neck and chest on males forms a hanging fold (the so-called dewlap). The tail is long, with a brush of long hair on the end. The females have two pairs of teats. In distinction to oxen, the horns of buffalo have a triangular form in cross section. The hair on buffalo is short and sparse, and toward old age it disappears almost completely. Wild buffalo are found in southern Asia and in Africa (south of the Sahara). The ranges of wild buffalo are varied. They are herd animals, feeding on vegetation. The gestation period is about 12 months. The females bear one calf. There are three genera of buffalo, of which there are four species.
The Indian (water) buffalo, or arna (Bubalus arnee), is also known as the Asiatic buffalo and belongs to the genus Bubalus. It is a large animal, up to 180 cm tall at the withers and weighing up to 1,000 kg. They are distinguished by their extremely long (up to 2 m) horns, which are bent within one plane. Their color is dark, almost black. They live in moist, swampy forests and in undergrowths along river banks and reservoirs. They are found in India, on the Indochinese peninsula, and on the islands of Ceylon and Kalimantan. As a result of intense hunting by man, the wild water buffalo is rare. The second species of this genus, the Philippine buffalo (B. mindorensis) is distinguished by its much smaller size. (Height at the withers is up to 100 cm.) They are distributed only on the island of Mindoro (in the Philippines). They are very close to the Indian buffalo and are sometimes considered a subspecies of them.
One species, the anoa, which lives on the island of Sulawesi, belongs to the genus Anoa.
The African, or cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer), is the only example of the genus Syncerus. The base of the animal’s horns is broad and forms a caplike covering on the upper part of the head. They are widely distributed to the south of the Sahara. There are several geographical races, differentiated by size and coloring of the body. The largest of these buffalo are as large in size as the water buffalo. Formerly they were found in large herds. They are game animals and have been badly hunted out in places, and their numbers are small in a large part of their range. They live in the forest-steppe and on the open plains.
I. I. SOKOLOV
The Indian buffalo has been tamed by man since ancient times. In domesticated form they are distributed in southern Asia, Africa, and southern Europe. In the USSR they are raised in the Azerbaijan, Georgian, and Armenian SSR’s and in the Northern Caucasus. The buffalo are large animals, up to 130 cm high at the withers, 135 cm along the flank, and 190 cm around the chest. Their coat is most frequently black, and occasionally dark brown or dark gray; albinos can be found. The buffalo have a strong, coarse, wiry constitution. The liveweight of bulls is up to 700 kg; of cows, 450 kg (occasionally up to 600 kg); of castrated bulls (kyali), up to 500 kg; and of calves at birth, 30-40 kg. Buffalo are late-maturing animals. The first issue appears at an age of four years, and full development is reached at seven or eight years of age. Buffalo are used in agriculture until they are 20-30 years old, mainly as milk animals, often as draft animals. They are used for breeding until age 15-16. The fertility of cows is to 100 percent, and twins are rare. A technique of artificial insemination has been developed.
Buffalo are basically raised in regions with warm climates near rivers, irrigation canals, and other reservoirs. Buffalo eat coarse plant fodder, which is poorly utilized by other animals. The basic product of buffalo is milk. The yield of cows on kolkhoz and sovkhoz farms is 1,400-1,600 kg of milk, with a record of 3,500 kg. The fat content is 8.0-8.8 percent. Mechanical milking is used in farming. Butter, cheese, and brynza are made from buffalo milk. The meat is used for food; in working animals it is tough, but in calves it is more tender. When fed and fattened on rations with corn silage or sugar beet pulp mixed with concentrates and coarse fodder, buffalo show a weight gain of 750-850 g, and the dressed weight is 45 percent. The skin is tough, heavy (25-50 kg), porous, and thick (0.4-0.9 cm). Buffalo are resistant to haemosporidiosis and malignant anthrax, easily endure foot-and-mouth disease, and the females do not abort during brucellosis. Planned breed work with buffalo is carried on in the Azerbaijan SSR, where the Dashiuzskii Breed Farm has been organized and where kolkhoz breed farms have been created.
REFERENCES
Agabeili, A. A. “Problema razvitiia molochnogo buivolovodstva.” In Trudy nauchnoi sessii Akademii sel’skokhoziaistvennykh nauk Azerbaidzhanskoi SSR. Baku, 1960.Agabeili, A. A. Buivoly. Moscow, 1967.
Lydekker, R. Wild Oxen, Sheep, and Goats of All Lands, Living and Extinct. London, 1898.
Lydekker, R. “Catalogue of the Ungulate Mammals in the British Museum.” In Natural History, vol. 1. London, 1913.
A. A. AGABEILI
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