Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/31

Rh of loading statesmen, that President Jefferson, even before the transfer of Louisiana was completed, addressed a confidential message to Congress, urging that means should be immediately taken to explore the sources of the Missouri and the Platte, and to ascertain whether the Columbia, the Oregon, the Colorado, or any other river, offered a direct and practicable water-communication across the continent, for purposes of commerce. The suggestions of the President being approved, commissions were issued to Captains Merriwether Lewis and William Clarke to perform this service. Captain Lewis made immediate preparations, and, by the time that the news of the ratification of the treaty had been received, was ready to commence his journey to the unknown West.

It was already summer when this news was received, and, although the party were ready to advance into the Indian country, it was too late to accomplish much of their journey before winter; besides which, some delay occurring in the surrender of the country west of the Mississippi, the party were not able to cross that river until December—in consequence of which detention, the ascent of the Missouri could not be undertaken before the middle of May, of the following year. The exploring party consisted of but forty-four men—an insignificant force to send into an Indian country—yet, perhaps, all the safer for its insignificance. They had to make the ascent against the current of the Mad River in boats, three of which sufficed to accommodate this adventurous expedition. By the end of October, they had arrived in the Mandan country, near the forty-eighth degree of latitude, or sixteen hundred miles from the Mississippi, where they made their winter camp. As every school-library is