Klem — The History of Science in St. Louis. 83 



complished very little beside exploring the country for 

 a few hundred miles above its mouth. 



In 1783 a proposition was made by Jefferson to George 

 Rogers Clark "for exploring the country of the Mis- 

 sisipi to California," but the expedition was never un- 

 dertaken. Three years later Jefferson arranged with 

 the adventurous John Ledyard of Connecticut, who had 

 been with Captain James Cook on his third voyage 

 around the world, to penetrate the Missouri river from 

 the west by crossing Europe and Asia to Kamchatka 

 and thence in a Russian trading vessel to Nootka Sound. 

 From there he was to find his way to the sources of the 

 Missouri and descend that stream to the American set- 

 tlements. This enterprise came to grief when Ledyard 

 was arrested in Kamchatka by agents of the Russian 

 crown. Captain John Armstrong in 1790 attempted to 

 ascend the Missouri under orders from the War Depart- 

 ment, but failed because of the hostility of the Missouri 

 Indian tribes. In 1793, Jefferson, as vice-president of 

 the American Philosophical Society — then almost the 

 only organization for the encouragement of scientific 

 study in America — dispatched upon this same mission 

 Andre Michaux, the distinguished French botanist, who, 

 however, tarried in Kentucky to conduct a French politi- 

 cal intrigue, with the result that his project of explora- 

 tion was abandoned. 



When Jefferson became President of the United States 

 he did not forget his early dreams of exploring the Far 

 West, and dispatched Lewis and Clark, 3 the first im- 



3 Jefferson, Thomas. Biography of Captain Lewis. Anal. Mag. and 

 Naval Chron. 7: 329-333. 1816. 



Allen, Paul. History of the expedition under the command of Cap- 

 tains Lewis and Clark. 1814. Reprint New Amsterdam Book Com- 

 pany. 



Coues, Elliott. History of the expedition under the command of 

 Lewis and Clark. 1893. 



Greely, A. W. Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieut. William Clark, 

 first trans-continental explorers of the United States. Men of Achieve- 

 ment. Explorers and Travellers. 105-162. 1893. 



