All records now in sight
Thus, seventy-five years after Jefferson's quest, and within
the centennial year of the departure of the Lewis and Clark
expedition from their preliminary camp on River
Dubois, there have
at last been located presumably
all the literary records now extant, of
that notable
enterprise in the cause of civilization. The Original
Journals,
now definitively published to the world, in a dress which surely
would have satisfied Jefferson, must create a new interest in
the
deeds of Lewis and Clark. They are, in the mass, much
more extensive than
the Biddle narrative; the voluminous
scientific data here given—in
botany, zoölogy, meteorology,
geology, astronomy, and ethnology
—is almost entirely a fresh
contribution; and we obtain from the
men's note-books as
written from day to day, a far more vivid picture of
the explorers
and their life, than can be
seen through the alembic of
Biddle's impersonal
condensation.
