270 
JEFFERSON A GEOGRAPHER 
ginian shedding luster on his native state, or as a citizen doing, 
in that broader national field things of greater import for his 
country and for oppressed humanity everywhere. Trite may 
have Ijeen the truths he uttered, but he voiced so apth" and 
clearly the aspirations of the people that his words yet thrill 
mankind and will in centuries to come. 
The National Geographic Society erred not in making ]\Ionti- 
cello the scene of its annual field day. Bear in mind that of all 
our Presidents Jefferson is the only one of whom we can .say, 
“ He was a geographer.” We do not know how far he aided his 
father in the surveys or draughting that resulted in the famed 
Jefferson and Fry map of Virginia, published in London in 1775, 
under Jefferys, the royal geographer, hut we can well imagine 
young Jefferson eagerly studying its western and scarcely known 
limits, then given over to the Indian and the Spaniard. Doubt- 
le.ss from such studies his comprehending mind, in a manner 
common to all men of genius, stored geographic facts and ideas 
that better fitted him for his life duties. Men of genius make all 
knowledge tributary to their particular interests and ambitions. 
In the days of travail for this nation, when to Europe America 
was a land of savages and forests, then it was that Jeffer.son did 
his first geographical wo*rk, writing “ Notes on Virginia,” to make 
known to the statesmen of France the resources and possibilities 
of a struggling colony. We know that the book was timely and 
effective, and we believe that it broadened the mind of Jefferson. 
His greatest geographic iheasure was his extra-constitutional act 
of annexation by purchase of the great territory of Louisiana. 
He realized that the only natural southern boundary of the 
United States of his day was the gulf of Mexico. To the south 
and southwest the pre.sence of Latin races meant constant irrita- 
tion and misunderstandings between them and the Anglo-Saxons. 
Louisiana acquired, Jefferson, like a good geographer, initiated 
a survey of its immense and unknown areas, sending Lewis and 
Clarke to the west, and Pike first to the north and then to the 
southwest. With unwonted wisdom and courage, even before 
the territory was formally transferred, he sent Lewis and Clarke 
on their long and perilous journey, the first as well as the most 
important of all American exi)lorations. Their three years’ 
journey taught the way to the Pacific overland, and their dis- 
covery of the upper valley of the Columhia, conjoined with 
Gray’s entrance at the mouth of that noble waterway in 1792, 
insured the title of the United States to Oregon territory in 1845. 
