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The Scientific Contributions of Lewis and Clark

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The Scientific Contributions of Lewis and Clark Copyright © 2004 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. "To acquire what knolege you can": The Scientific Contributions of Lewis and Clark ROBERT MCCRACKEN PECK The two-volume report of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Nicholas Biddle and published in Philadelphia in 1814, is probably the most famous American expedition narrative ever published. The pub- lication is flawed in a number of ways, however. It lacks any visual documentation and is notably weak in scientific content.' While the omission of illustrations may be attributed to budgetary considera- tions and a lack of interest in visual embellishments by the report's editor, the narrative's dearth of scientific substance was calculated and intentional. Scientific information was omitted from volumes one and two so as not to duplicate the contents of a planned third volume, which was to focus exclusively on the scientific discoveries of the ex- pedition. One of the great tragedies of the Lewis and Clark legacy is that the third volume was never produced. Under Lewis's direction, the scientific report was to have been or- ganized and written by Benjamin Smith Barton, the talented Philadel- phia naturalist who had advised Lewis on techniques for collecting, identifying, and preserving plants prior to his departure for the West. Barton was a professor of botany, natural history, and medicine at the I. BiddJe, ed.. History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark to the Sources of the Missouri, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Bradford & Inskeep, r8l4).The Dublin edi- tion of 1817 contains a view of the Great Fails of the Missouri by ¡ohn james Barralet (ca. 1747-1815), which Lewis commissioned (along with a view of tlie Falls of the Columhia), but it was inexplicably omitted from the American editions. The original drawings have since been lost. For more on this topic, see )oni L. Kinsey's essay in this volume. Copyright © 2004 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. 6 I South Dakota History VOL. 34, NO. I University of Pennsylvania. He was a friend of Thomas Jefferson and an active member of the American Philosophical Society. Lewis met with him repeatedly during his month-long stay in Philadelphia in the spring of 1803. Although a number of other eminent botanists and horticulturists worked in Philadelphia at the time. Barton was the most experienced teacher in the field and, probably for this reason, was identified by Jefferson as the best qualified to instruct Lewis.^ As an accomplished taxonomist and published authority on a wide range of natural history topics, he was also Lewis's logical choice as the per- son to help write up the scientific discoveries of the expedition. Barton's textbook. Elements of Botany (1803), was the first of its kind to be published in America. It is one of the dozen or so books that Lew- is carried with him as part of his "traveling library" during the expedi- tion.3 It is still unclear why Lewis had to buy a copy of Barton's book (records show that he paid six dollars for it),-* for the botanist was ex- tremely generous in lending him other books, most notably his own copy of Du Pratzfs History of Louisiana (1774).5 Lewis evidently so valued the information that this book contained, as well as the friend- ship with Barton that its loan represented, that he carried it with him on the trip and returned it with this lengthy inscription four years later: Dr, Benjamin Smith Barton was so obliging as to lend me this copy of Monsr. Du Pratzfs history of Louisiana in June 1803. it has been since con- veyed by me to the Pacific Ocean through the interior of the Continent of North America on my late tour thither and is now returned to it's proprie- 2. William Bartram's botanical garden, begun by his father John Bartram, was one of the best known in the country, making it curious that no evidence survives to confirm that Lewis either visited his garden or met with Bartram during his time in Philadelphia, There is also no evidence to suggest that Lewis met with William Hamilton, in whose garden Lewis's col- lected seeds and cuttings were propagated after the expedition. J. For a discussion of the expedition's traveling library, see Donald D. Jackson, "Some Books Carried by Levris and Clark," Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 16 (Oct. 1959): 3-13, and Stephen Dow Beckham et al. The Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: A Bibliog- raphy and Essays (Portland, Oreg.: Lewis & Clark College, 2003), pp. 23-42. 4. Donald Jackson, ed,. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 17S3-1S54, 2d ed., rev., 2 vols. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 1:96. 5, The book was originaliy published in two volumes in 1758. Lewis carried the one-vol- ume second edition of 1774. Copyright © 2004 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. SPRING 2004 Scientific Contributions I 7 tor by his Friend and Obt. Servt. Meriwether Lewis. Philadelphia, May 9th, Barton's copy of Du Pratz's book, later purchased by the Library Com- pany of Philadelphia, is one ofthe most remarkable relics ofthe expe- dition. It says much about Lev^ds's commitment to scholarship that he would carry it with him across the continent and back, and about his integrity that he would return it to its owner four years after its loan. Barton's role as an advisor to Lewis covered not only botanical sub- jects but some medical ones as well. He was one ofthe country's lead- ing experts in materia medica, the medicinal use of plants.? Although there is no written record to prove it, it seems inconceivable that Bar- ton would not have given Lewis a copy of his collected essays on this subject, which he first issued in 1798 as Collections for an Essay towards a Materia Medica ofthe United States and then republished several times over the next two decades. The pamphlet would have been light and easy to carry and contained a detailed series of instructions for the use of plants for every conceivable illness—just the sort of publication Lewis would have wanted to have in his medical kit. Barton also may have given Lewis another publication that would have been invaluable to the young explorer on the expedition: a small but useful booklet by the English naturalist Edward Donovan entitled Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Various Subjects of Natural His- tory (1794), which was in wide use among American naturalists at the time Lewis received his training from Barton.^ Again, there is no spe- cific reference to this document in Lewis's journal, but the skill with which natural history specimens were collected and preserved during 6. Quoted in Paul Russell Cutright. "Lewis and Clark and Du Pratz," Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 21 (Oct. 1964): 35. 7. This subject was also familiar to Lewis because of his own mother's knowledge in this area. H. Wayne Phillips, Plants ofthe Lemis and Clark Expedition (Missoula, Mont: Mountain Press Publishing Co., 2003), p. i. 8. See Robert McCracken Peck, "Preserving Nature for Study and Display" and "Alcohol and Arsenic, Pepper and Pitch: Brief Histories of Preservation Techniques." in Sluing Birds. Pressing Plants. Shaping Knowledge: Natural History in North America. iy}o-i86o. ed. Sue Ann Prince (Phliadeiphia: American Philosophical Society, 2003), pp. 11-5}. Copyright © 2004 by the South Dakota State Historical Society. All Rights Reserved. 8 I South Dakota History VOL. 34, NO. i the expedition gives abundant circumstantial evidence to suggest that the explorers had ready access to this work, or to a comparable set of instructions, during their time in the field. Barton's advice to Lewis in the months prior to his departure for Saint Louis did much to sharpen the focus and hone the effectiveness of the explorer-naturalist. The numbers of plants and animals discov- ered, described, collected, and successfully transported to the East by the Corps of Discovery is a testament to Lewis, who oversaw the sci- entific activities of the expedition, and to Barton and Lewis's other ac- ademic mentors, who directly and indirectly inspired such efforts. Had Lewis's premature death and Barton's declining health not pre- vented the publication of the projected volume of the expedition's sci- entific discoveries, we might well remember the Corps of Discovery and its leaders today as scientific trail-blazers, as well as geographical pioneers. It is, at least in part, a reflection of Barton's influence on Lewis that so many plant specimens were collected during the expedition. Of these, 232 have survived to the present day. All but 10 are preserved in the herbarium of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. They represent about 173 species of which 70 to 75 were new to science at the time of their discovery.9 Some of the plants that made it back to the East Coast were lost through subsequent mishandhng and the prédation of insects, but those that have survived are in remarka- bly good condition. Sadly, many more plants collected by Lewis and Clark were lost in the field when the expedition's cache at Great Falls was destroyed by flood waters during the winter of 1805 and early spring of 1806. It is not surprising, then, that roughly two-thirds of the surviving plant specimens—about 140 species—^were discovered by the expedition west of the Continental Divide. Given the tremendous interest in the plants and seeds that Lewis and Clark did bring back, it is curious that it took another seven years before any of them were officially described and illustrated.
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