64 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



estimation new to science. These Wilson agreed to pay for through 

 his agent in Savannah. 



In January, 1810, the second volume of the Ornithology ap- 

 peared, and shortly afterward Wilson started westward to explore 

 the ornithological terra incognita that lay beyond the Alleghanies. 

 He had for some years realized the necessity of exploring this 

 country as he supposed there were many birds to be found there 

 which never came east of the mountains. In 1805 he had ar- 

 ranged such an excursion in company with Bartram, but the fail- 

 ing health of the venerable botanist finally compelled him to re- 

 linquish all thought of going, while Wilson, after failing to receive 

 an appointment upon the government expedition, also abandoned 

 the project as he realized that his finances would not warrant such 

 an undertaking. Now, however, the expedition was imperative 

 both on account of the probable scientific results and the possible 

 subscribers to be obtained in the towns of the Ohio and Mis- 

 sissippi Valleys. 



His route lay from Pittsburg down the Ohio, which he trav- 

 ersed in a rowboat, as far as Louisville. There he sold his skiff 

 to a man who wondered at its curious Indian (!) name "The Orni- 

 thologist," and set out on foot to Lexington and Nashville. He 

 visited the Mammoth Cave and sent to the editor of the Port- 

 folio in Philadelphia letters containing a careful description of 

 this and other interesting points that he passed on his journey. 



Before leaving Nashville he wrote to a friend, "Nine hundred 

 miles distant from you sits Wilson, the hunter of birds' nests and 

 sparrows, just preparing to enter on a wilderness of 780 miles, 

 most of it in the territory of Indians, alone, but in good spirits, 

 and expecting to have every pocket crammed with skins of new 

 and extraordinary birds before he reaches the City of New Or- 

 leans." 



The territory of Mississippi through which Wilson traveled 

 alone on horseback was then mainly populated by the semicivilized 

 Indian tribes which were afterwards transported to the present 

 Indian Territory and he met but few white men. The route was 

 exceedingly difficult, being through dense forests and "most 



