THE SOURCES OF THE MISSOURI, THENCE ACROSS THE ROCKY YEARS 1804, 1805, 1806, BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. PREPARED FOR THE PRESS BY PAUL ALLEN, ESQ. REVISED, AND ABRIDGED BY THE OMISSION OF UMIMPORTANT DE ADVERTISEMENT THAT portion of the North American Conti nent known by the name of the Oregon Territory, lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, has for many years been almost a blank in the history of the United States. It has, however, frequently been the subject of resolutions and reports in Congress, of communications between the different branches of the government, and of discussion with the ministers of foreign powers. Still, any strong interest in regard to it has been confined to a few, and it has been for the most part overlooked amid other topics of the day. As a subject involving in it considerations connected with commerce, colonization, and territorial boundaries, it is now daily growing in impor tance. The History of the Expedition of Captains Lewis and Clarke, during the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, by order of the Government of the United States, is the first narrative which dif fused widely among us a knowledge of this ter ritory, and the intermediate country from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. It presents a description of a wild and magnificent region, unvisited before by white men, with its barbarous tribes, their character and habits, and abounding in herds of buffalo, deer, and antelope, outnumbering the human tenants of the land. The work being now nearly out of print, it seemed to the publishers a suitable time to put forth an edition of the Journal of Lewis and Clarke pruned of unimportant details, with a sketch of the progress of maritime discovery on the Pacific coast, a summary account of earlier attempts to penetrate this vast western wilderness, and such extracts and illustrations from the narratives of later travellers, led by objects of trade, the love of science, or religious zeal, as the limits of the undertaking would allow. The matter of the original journal is indicated by inverted commas, and where portions of it, embracing minute and uninteresting partic ulars, have been omitted, the leading facts have been briefly stated by the editor in his own words, so that the connexion of the narrative is preserved unbroken, and nothing of importance is lost to the reader. To the lamented death of Captain Lewis, while his manuscript was not |