<-'oues.] •-'-^ [Jan. 20, 



the Historical Committee of the Philosophical Society, making the deposit 

 of fourteen of the volumes which form part of the above codices, etc.; 

 1 sheet letter paper, 2 folios, 4 pages, the last ^blauk, endorsed in another 

 hand "received and read to the Ilislorical Comme., April, 1818, see 

 Minute?." It is an important record. I have also in hand (from Judge 

 Craig Biddle) the rough draft whence this clean copy was made. 



Paper 2. — A memorandum in Mr. Biddle's hand of Mr. Jefierson's de- 

 posit (Nov., 1817) of three bound volumes of the Lewis and Clark Jour- 

 nals and Notes. A mere slip of paper. I have added in my hand a 

 memorandum of these volumes, which are above Codices P, Q, R, making 

 with the fourteen bound volumes of the Biddle deposit, and one of the 

 red books of unascertained deposit, the eighteen books — thirteen red, four 

 marbled, one brown — which I received from the Philosophical Society, 

 December 16, 1892. 



Paper 3. — Another memorandum of these codices ; a mere slip of paper 

 serving as a label to the books when shelved. 



Paper 4. — A memorandum of intended illustrations of the published 

 volumes — four for Vol. i, three for Vol ii. But the engravings actually 

 made do not agree with this memorandum. The paper is a mere slip, 

 written one side, and was found pasted inside the cover of one ot the red 

 books. 



Paper 5. — A blind memorandum, five items, headed "Papers, &c., ot 

 Capt. Lewis, &c." The items speak of "ten or twelve pocket vols., 

 morocco bound;" of some natural history matter, "probably with Dr. 

 Barton's books ;" of certain vocabularies, ditto ; of certain "observations 

 of Lat. and Long. — of these probably Mr. Patterson knows something ;" 

 and of some niiips "i^robablyin the hands of the Publishers." It is a 

 small square of letter paper, written one side, and rather a groping after 

 something than any intelligible statement. 



Papers. — Engraved copperplate of "The Fisher" or pekan, Mustela 

 pennanti, perhaps having no connection with Lewis and Clark matters. 



Note. — Mr. Biddle speaks in some of his letters of having had the orig- 

 inal manuscript Journals of Sergeants Ordway and Gass. I find neither 

 of these. His letter above cited, of April 6, 1818, speaks of the Ordway 

 Journal as having been purchased from that person, and of Governor 

 Clark's desiring, in letter of January 24, 1818, that it should be returned 

 to him (Clark). I have no clue whatever to the Gass manuscript. The 

 printed volume of Gass is of course well-known. 



From the manuscripts above described it will be seen at once that the 

 whole history of the Expedition might easily be reconstructed, if this were 

 desirable. Mr. Biddle made a noble narrative, which has become a classic. 

 The question, how closely he followed the original Journals and Note- 

 books, has often been raised but never settled. It is now easy to see that 



