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 
André 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,* 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. 
