& i*ttEfrACfe. 
to the practical botanist) was of the greatest im- 
portance to me. 
Soon after my return from the last-mentioned jour- 
ney, I had the pleasure to form an acquaintance with 
Meriwether Lewis, Esq., then Governor of Upper Loui- 
siana, who had lately returned from an expedition across 
the Continent of America to the Pacific Ocean, by the 
way of the Missouri and the great Columbia rivers, ex- 
ecuted under the direction of the Government of the 
United States. A small but highly interesting collec- 
tion of dried plants was put into my hands by thia 
gentleman, in order to describe and figure those I 
thought new, for the purpose of inserting them in the 
account of his Travels, which he was then engaged 
in preparing for the press. This valuable work, by the 
unfortunate and untimely end of its author, has been in- 
terrupted in its publication ; and although General Da- 
niel Clark, the companion of Mr. Lewis, (to whom I 
transmitted all the drawings prepared for the work,) un- 
dertook the editorship after his death, it has not, to my 
knowledge, yet appeared before the public, notwith- 
standing the great forwardness the journals and mate- 
rials were in when I had the opportunity of perusing 
them. 
The collection of plants just spoken of was made 
during the rapid return of the expedition from the Pa- 
cific Ocean towards the United States. A much more 
extensive one, made on their slow ascent towards the 
Rocky mountains and the chains of the Northern An- 
des, had unfortunately been lost, by being deposited 
among other things at the foot of those mountains. The 
loss of this first collection is the more to be regretted. 
