"This exploration was the outcome, and almost the only valuable result, of the ill-starred project popularly known at the time as the Yellowstone expedition, which had been designed to establish military posts on the upper Missouri…" The scientific observations of the expedition were made by a company of specialists under the command of Major Long. His associates were Major John Biddle, Dr. Edwin James, Dr. Thomas Say, Augustus Edward Jessup, T. R. Peale, Samuel Seymour, and Cadet William H. Swift. These men were assigned by Congress to ascend the Platte to its source and return to the Mississippi by way of the Arkansas and the Red. Plagued by health problems, inadequate equipment, technical errors and simple carelessness, the expedition failed to accomplish either of its objectives-the discovery of the sources of the Platte and of the Red. Both Long and James provided negative reports on the suitability of this section of the country for cultivation based on the scarcity of wood and water. Despite all criticism, "the work of the expedition was, and is, of considerable value. The exploration of the Canadian River was an important contribution to American geography." Other contributions include details relative to natural history and ethnology: "more than sixty skins of new or rare animals, several thousand insects, of which many hundreds were new, nearly five hundred undescribed plants, mineral specimens, many new species of shells, numerous fossils, a hundred and twenty-two animal sketches, and a hundred and fifty landscape views." Of equal value is the portion of the account devoted to the Kansa and Omaha tribes.
Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D.
(1905), 2007, CD-ROM, Graphic Images, Searchable, Adobe v6, PC or Mac, 322 pp.
ISBN: 9780788444166
101-CD4416
