Lewis and Clark: Naturalist-Explorers
Photographs by Sam Abell
Text by Ronald Fisher
Every day brought something new. A stately pronghorn, perhaps, watchful under darkening skies. Or a new plant—the vine maple—its leaf sketched onto a journal page. As Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led their expedition into the Louisiana territory in 1804, discoveries piled up: "Parrot queets" one day, "Leek Green Grass"—big bluestem—the next. To Lewis the wilderness seemed "one emence garden."
The success of the Lewis and Clark expedition in traveling through newly acquired land from St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean is well known. But it would take a century for scientists learned of the extent of the men’s scientific observations and almost two to recognize the value of this remarkable treasure trove of descriptions and illustrations.
Discover the other side to these explorers—the amateur scientists from the age of Enlightenment, quizzing Indians about the uses to which they put various plants, searching for mineral deposits, mapping the heaviest concentrations of beaver for future trappers, and noting lands suitable for farming—all while recording the plant and animal life of the American West in its natural condition.
NGM 1998/10