104 SHORT ON WESTERN BOTANY. 



gent farmer and physician, two or three editions have been 

 published in Europe, and one in America. 



The estimable and venerable author of this work is now 

 living in the neighbourhood of Paris, in Fi'ance; and to him we 

 liad the pleasure, a short time since, of sending by Dr Camp- 

 bell of Tennessee, a small parcel of plants, being chiefly such 

 as have been discovered in this country, since the travels ot 

 his father and himself. 



Soon after the purchase of Louisiana, the Government ot 

 the United States wisely determined upon taking measures to 

 explore their newly acquired territory, and the immense wilder- 

 ness included within its limits, in order to learn its geographi- 

 cal boundaries, its soil, and natural productions. As intimate- 

 ly connected with tlie investigation before us, and as next in 

 the order of their occurrence, we must mention the labours of 

 those intrepid explorers Lewis and Clark, who at the instance 

 of President Jefferson were sent in 1803 to the Western por- 

 tions of our Northern continent, up the Missouri, over the 

 Rocky mountains, and down the Columbia to the shores or 

 the Pacific. Of the fitness of Capt. Lewis for the command 

 of such an expedition, the President thus expresses himself m 

 his recommendation to Congress. " Of courage undaunted ; 

 possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which 

 nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction; 

 careful as a father of those committed to his care, yet steady 

 in the maintenance of order and discipline ; intimate with the 

 Indian character, customs, and principles; habituated to the 

 hunting life; guarded by exact observation of the vegetables 

 and animals of his own country, against losing time in the de- 

 scription of objects already possessed ; honest, disinterested, 

 liberal, of sound understanding, and a fidelity to truth so scru- 

 pulous, that whatever he should report would be as certain as 

 if seen by ourselves : with all these qualifications, as if selected 

 and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, 

 I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him- 

 Under this leader was this daring enterprise accomplished 

 in three years, to the entire satisfaction of the government. 



