In his study of botany, having already explored the area of the Mississippi and east, Nuttall turned his thoughts to the Arkansa Territory, which offered "a practically virgin field for the scientific investigator." He set out from Philadelphia October 2, 1818 for Arkansas Post where he arrived on January 22, 1819 and remained for three weeks studying the flora of the vicinity. He then spent three weeks at the mouth of the Kiamichi before arriving at the mouth of the Verdigris River. He spent nearly a month there studying the plant life and geology of the region and observing the habits of the Osage Indians. His final destination was the Cimarron River. Plagued by Indians and illness, he was forced to return to the Verdigris River until October 16 when he began his descent of the Arkansas to New Orleans. A shy, contemplative man, his "chief converse has been in the wilderness with the spontaneous productions of nature…" Although Nuttall will be remembered primarily as a man of science, "no other explorer of the botany of North America has, personally, made more discoveries; no writer on American plants…has described more new genera and species," the "value of the work lies in the record of his personal observations…graphic descriptions of the settled portions of the Arkansas country and the state of civilization prevalent there in 1819," as well his information regarding the native tribes of the region, especially the Quapaw.
Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D.
(1905), 2007, CD-ROM, Graphic Images, Searchable, Adobe v6, PC or Mac, 366 pp.
ISBN: 9780788444180
101-CD4418
