, 1862-09-06
REVIEW


of the Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1905
from st. Louis to the mouth of the COlum.
bia--by CAPT. JOHN MULLAN, U. s. A.
In witnessing to-day the varied developments
that being so rapidly made in the vast region
drained by the Columbia and its immense network
of tributaries, the mind instinctively, and in pleas
ant contrast, reverts to the date of its earliest ex
ploration, and to the men under whose guidance
and auspices the bold enterprise was undertaken
and brought to so successful termination.
The history of geographical explorations
throughout the world furnishes few instances
where the objects sought to be accomplished were
grander nobler, or where the difficulties to be
surmounted were greater than that enterprise set
on foot to explore the region Of country drained
by the Missouri and Columbia rivers, and which
has been so truthfully given us in the simple and
unpretending narrative of Lewis and Clark.
The date and circumstances attending the start
ing of this expedition worthy special remark,
showing as they do that even at the beginning of
the present century, the disposition of our govern
ment was to explore new and far distant regions
at any cost, peril or danger. This was period
when we had but recently emerged from a colo
nial conGition-when our settlements were prin-
cpally confined to the eastern slopes of the Allie
ghanes-and where the pers of western from
tier life at that day can be read in the published
histories of Kentucky, Tennessee Ohio and Hi
nois. The bands of rowing and ever savage In
dian tribes still occupied the vast region from the
foot of the western water shed of the Allegheny
mountains to the summit of the Rocky range, and
where their light bark canoes alone disturbed the
silent waters of the great Mississippi, Missouri
and Ohio. This was period when the axman's
stroke was for the first time heard in the great
primeval forests of the west and where the daily
incidents and encounters in the lives of Daniel
Boone, George Rogers, Clark, and the frontiers
men of that day formed equally the topics of daily
conversation and gossip in Cabinet sessions, while
grave affairs Of State were barely discussed. This
was time when France and Great Britain, equal
ly with ourselves, were joint claimants to the vast
domain extending from the Mississippi towards
the setting sun, and limited only by the bold wa
ters of the Pacific on the west. 1t was a time
when the great geographical and commercial CEN
ter of our nation, St. Louis, the starting point of
the expedition, was the site of a small French vii
lage, of rude, frame tenements and where its mer-
chants were content with a barter of whisky and
powder for furs and peltIirs-a time when tho
mind and affairs of our citizens were rveted upon
home and the iresides where had sat their fathers
and grand-fathers before them.
This was period when the wild power of steam
had not yet been caught and harnessed to the
wheels and shafts and spindles of commercial
and manufacturing world; and when the electric
pulse that by its ceaseless beatings was to add a
new life to torpid world, still lay slumbering in
the womb of the future. 1t was period when a
new mould of the worlds activity and ingenuity
was to be cast, and when man was to demonstrate
more practically that the development of mind
formed one of the great objects of mans habita-
tion of this earth.
1t was at such period of the worlds history
as this, therefore, that destiny had determined
that the broad and unknown region lying between
the Alleghanies and the Pacific should be ex-
plored, made known to and occupied by the thou
sands of industrious citizens and aliens whose
hands still clung to their own altars at home and
from whose feet had never as yet fallen the dust
of their own homesteads.
Before the cession of Louisiana to the United
States by France, in 1903, truly nothing was
known 10 geography of the great interior whence
flow the Missouri, Mississippi and Columbia-the
three great arteries of our country. No bold
geographer had as yet threaded the long and tor
tuous windings of the two former and though
speculation had oft and for years asserted that a
great river rose in the great Rocky range, and
poured its tribute towards the western ocean, and
which explorers at that day styled the great river
{" San Rogue" it was now for the first time authen-
tically proclaimed to the world that our majestic
Columbia existed.
Expeditions by sea- carried on under the flags
of the English, Spanish, Russian and Mexican
from the tropics to the 6Sth parallel of north lat
itude; and though the coast was we'll marked and
we'll observed, still no parties were ever sent on
shore TO explore the great interior. Although
the American navigator, Gray, secured to us by
the right of discovery, the country through which
the Columbia flows, yet he could tell us nothing
of the interior save what he saw from the deck O.
the first vessel that was heated upon the water,
of the river which now bears its noble name.
When the mythical river, "San Rogue" was
now no longer a subject of doubt or speculation
but when it was known that its waters had beer
drank of, and its magnifcence and importance
published to the world, the prompt and sagaciou
determined in his own mind that the value of sucf
a treasure should not only be secured to us, bu
should be appreciated by us by making known t.
< the world, through the efforts and labors of al
American exploration, the extent, character ant
resources of that vast region watered by this grea
inland sea.
i The first and greatest object with him was t.
secure it to us by right and a title which wa
indsputabe not only for ourselves but against al
foreign nations who might desire to establish
claims in iuxtapositon to our own Territorial pos
sessions 1t was contrary to the established prin
ciples of our government then; it is now, to see
= a war with either foreign or a neghboring ma
ton with the object of conquest in view; an
hence, to obtain from France the large Territor
of Louisiana, (caimed. to extend from the Missi: