Continuing the Legacy of Lewis and Clark
On June 20, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent careful instructions to Meriwether Lewis that outlined the scientific goals of Lewis and Clark’s bold transcontinental mission. Excerpts of President Jefferson’s instructions: Explore the Missouri river... & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean; Take observations of latitude & longitude, courses of the river, variations of the compass; [Observe] the soil & face of the country, ... growth & vegetable productions; the animals of the country, the mineral productions of every kind; volcanic appearances, ... climate, ...particular plants, birds, reptiles or insects.
The Legacy U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Today the USGS continues to serve the Nation Even before the United States purchased as an independent fact-finding agency the Louisiana Territory from France in that provides scientific understanding 1803, President Thomas Jefferson had about natural resources. Because of the Courtesy of the already commissioned Meriwether striking similarities between the USGS American Philosophical Lewis to explore the continent west to mission and Thomas Jefferson’s Society the Pacific Ocean. For hundreds of scientific charge to Lewis and Clark, the years, the fabled Northwest Passage had USGS can be seen as an organizational inspired explorers as they tried to find a successor to Lewis and Clark. navigable route through North America. President Thomas Jefferson still With no regulatory or management envisioned the advantages such a water mandates, the USGS serves the Nation route would bring to the Nation when he as an independent fact-finding agency instructed Meriwether Lewis about his that collects, monitors, analyzes, and Courtesy of the mission. provides scientific understanding about Joslyn Art Museum natural resource conditions, issues, and Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery problems. The value of the USGS to the was the Nation’s first federally funded Nation rests on its ability to carry out scientific expedition. In carrying out studies in the earth and life sciences on Jefferson’s instructions, the explorers a national scale and to sustain long-term mapped every twist and turn of the monitoring and assessment of natural Missouri, Columbia, and other rivers. resources. They also gathered information about the soils, plants, animals, and native USGS participation inhabitants of the lands through which they passed. The goal of USGS participation in the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial The Lewis and Clark Expedition was the Commemoration is to increase public first of many government surveys of awareness about the value of science in natural resources in the American West. understanding the complex resource In 1879, four such surveys were management issues that face the United Photo by D.J. Nichols, USGS combined into a new agency called the States.
U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey USGS Map of Today
The digitally produced shaded-relief map to the left gives a much more detailed look of the same area mapped by William Clark. Elevation is represented as a range of colors, from dark green for low elevation to white for high elevations. For more information on the USGS National Map Data that was used to prepare this map, visit this web site: http://nationalmap.usgs.gov/
During the Bicentennial, the USGS USGS and the U.S. Environmental features described by Lewis and Clark. will bring the natural science of Lewis Protection Agency, will be shared with This map poster, Lewis and Clark: A and Clark’s time and the science of the public attending the Corps of Legacy of Science, can be previewed today to the public through USGS Discovery II. Also, look for USGS online at the USGS website and exhibits at museums and visitor exhibits and scientists in activities at ordered from USGS (1-888-ASK- centers, by an extensive website all of the Bicentennial Signature USGS). emphasizing USGS science Events. (http://www.usgs.gov/features/lewisan Continuing the Legacy dclark.html), by video presentations In cooperation with over 20 other and electronic educational projects, federal agencies, the USGS has Two hundred years later, the USGS, and through USGS participation in the produced a special Lewis and Clark the Nation’s largest earth science Federal Corps of Discovery II, a map, Discovering the Legacy of Lewis agency, carries on the legacy of traveling classroom that will retrace and Clark, that shows the location of surveying our natural heritage that the route of the Lewis and Clark the Corps of Discovery route from began with Lewis and Clark. USGS expedition during the Bicentennial. coast to coast. This map is available scientists continue to map, measure, free of charge from many federal and monitor great river systems and At numerous stops along the route, agencies and at Lewis and Clark the lands that border them. Although USGS scientists will give commemoration sites across the modern scientific tools, such as presentations about related ongoing nation. seismic monitoring devices and USGS investigations, explaining remote sensing, are far more changes in river systems and pointing The USGS has also prepared a sophisticated than those employed by out advances in scientific instruments commemorative Lewis and Clark map Lewis and Clark, the spirit of and understanding that have occurred poster that portrays the 1814 map dedication and sense of discovery during the last 200 years. In particular, drawn by William Clark of previously remain the same. In surveying natural the results from an ongoing unknown territory in contrast to a resources and applying scientific investigation of the changes in water modern physiographic map of the knowledge to the land, the USGS quality of the lower Missouri and same area, digitally constructed from continues what Lewis and Clark middle Mississippi Rivers over the last remote sensing images, that accurately began. Find out more about the USGS two centuries, cosponsored by the depicts the magnificent landscape at our website (http://www.usgs.gov).
Original drawing by Jim Adams courtesy of L&C Replicas, Butch Bouvier, Onawa, IA
Contact Information:
Dale Blevins, USGS Lewis and Clark Bicentennial For USGS Lewis and Clark science, events, and activities, Coordinator: (816) 254-8172; [email protected] visit http://www.usgs.gov/features/lewisandclark.html.
Jon Campbell, USGS Lewis and Clark Outreach Coordinator: (703) 648-4180; [email protected]