98 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



flies he noted and the characteristic fossil crinoids of 

 this region. He described carefully the mounds in St. 

 Louis and crossed the river to visit those in Illinois, par- 

 ticularly Cahokia Mound. 



Instead of joining one of the annual fur trading cara- 

 vans of the Bocky Mountain Fur Company, as he had 

 planned, Maximilian, on the advice of General Clark, 

 took the American Fur Company's annual steamboat to 

 their trading posts on the Missouri. At Fort Clark, the 

 company's Mandan post, the German visitor attended 

 various ceremonies, dances and feasts, took portraits of 

 the chiefs, and studied the manners and customs, and 

 myths and superstitions of this vanishing race. 



About 1830 St. Louis began to feel the effects of the 

 Oregon immigration movement, and among the earliest 

 leaders was Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, 16 who conducted 

 two expeditions to the Far West. His project was to 

 organize a trading company to do business in the valley 

 of the Columbia river and its tributaries, his plan being 

 to furnish supplies to his colonists and ship his products 

 by ocean vessels sailing to and from the Columbia. He 

 believed that by this method he could reach the country 

 beyond the mountains far more cheaply than by way of 

 St. Louis. 



On his second expedition Wyeth was accompanied by 

 two scientists — Thomas Nuttall and John K. Townsend, 17 



i6 The correspondence and journals of Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, 

 1831-6. Sources of the History of Oregon. 1. 1899. 



Young, F. C. The Oregon trail. Oregon Hist. Soc. Quart. 1: 339- 

 370. 1900. 



Drake, S. A. Nathaniel J. Wyeth. Oregon Hist. Soc. Quart. 1: 

 66-70. 1900. 



Chittenden, H. M. The American fur trade in the far west. 1 : 434- 

 456. 1902. 



Thwaites, R. G. Wyeth's Oregon, or, A short history of a long jour- 

 ney. Early Western Travels 1748-1846. 21: 1904. 



it Thwaites, R. G. Narrative of a journey across the Rocky moun- 

 tains to the Columbia river, and a visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, 

 etc., with a scientific appendix. 1839. Early Western Travels 1748- 

 1846. 21. 1904. 



